Where shall we meet?: Lamb and Flag, WC2

Don't look for Rose Street in your A to Z; this dustbin-alley off Garrick St obviously didn't strike the cartographers as being somewhere anyone would want to go.

Nonetheless, tucked away here is this pub, which claims Dickens and friends as former habitues, plus 'the wits and gallants of the Restoration'. The interior hasn't changed much: the whole impression is of being hit by a gallon of brown gloss. This is an ideal place for the boys to have a testosterone-based revel: the only female presence here will generally be manning (or womaning) the pumps. The beer, reportedly, is excellent, varied and of the 'real' type.

The Lamb and Flag, Rose St WC2 (071-497 9504)