Where to drink in Marlow

Why Marlow

Marlow is, by any measure, a small town. West Street runs through it in about ten minutes at a relaxed pace. But the concentration of good drinking and eating on that single street is remarkable, and the Thames suspension bridge at the end of it frames everything in a way that few English market towns can manage.

The Hand and Flowers is the anchor - Tom Kerridge’s two-Michelin-star gastropub that has put Marlow on the culinary map since 2005. It is difficult and expensive to book, and the food at the bar remains the easiest way in. But the reputation is justified, and the bar itself - low-ceilinged, unfussy, genuinely publike - is good enough to visit without eating.

The traditional side

The Two Brewers on Saint Peter Street represents Marlow’s other tradition - the reliable, long-standing local pub that has survived several waves of redevelopment and remains the kind of place where regulars sit at the same end of the bar every night. It keeps good cask ale, has a dog-friendly policy that it applies without fuss, and has the slightly timeless quality that only genuinely old pubs acquire.

A day’s drinking

Marlow rewards a slow day. Arrive in the morning, walk the Thames Path to Hurley and back, and the Two Brewers or The Ship on West Street is waiting at the end of it. The town does not stay open late - it is not a late-night destination - but what it offers in the early evening, particularly in good weather by the river, is difficult to improve on.