Where to drink in Chelmsford

A city finding its pace

Chelmsford received city status in 2012 and has been quietly living into it ever since. The High Street is unremarkable, but the streets around Moulsham and the area between the cathedral and the canal hold something more interesting. The Queen’s Head on Lower Anchor Street is the anchor - a proper pub with cask ales that have been maintained correctly for longer than most of the city’s bars have been open.

The craft beer movement took hold in Chelmsford earlier than in comparable Essex towns, partly because of the proximity to London and partly because of a particular culture around Tindal Square that attracted independent operators in the early 2010s. The Laboratory on Tindal Street is the result of that: a serious craft taproom that has outlasted several waves of trend and is still the best place in the city to drink something interesting from a keg.

The gastropub question

Chelmsford has a number of gastropubs operating along Moulsham Street - the stretch south of the High Street that has become the de facto restaurant-and-bar quarter. The Saracen’s Head does good food alongside its drinking, without the kitchen overwhelming the bar. It is a reliable choice and a decent indicator of how the city has moved from purely functional drinking towards something more considered.

Getting around

The city is compact. Most of the best drinking is within fifteen minutes’ walk of Chelmsford station, and the area around the Cathedral is pleasantly quiet by 9pm on weeknights - which makes early evening drinking in Chelmsford a genuinely relaxed affair.