Alex (A Clockwork Orange)

Seven Stars (Chancery Lane)

“What’s it going to be then, eh?”

There was me (that is Alex), Matt and Jules and we were making up our rassoodocks what to do with the afternoon – the London weather being a flip winter chill, bastard though dry. We fancied a malenky bit of city late lunch where the red claret could flow down our chins like krovvy, O my brothers. We considered groodies at the Griffin and devotchkas at Spearmint but opted for the more wholesome course of peet and pishcha at The Seven Stars. And why not?

The Seven Stars is located round the back of Municipal Flatblock 18A off Chancery Lane and near the law courts. Lawyers frequent the establishment and enjoy the local charm as it were - lawyers being the type of bourgeois personage that would have been on the end of some ultraviolence from yours truly, once upon a time.

The landlady Roxy is a malenky bit rude, that being all part of the charm of this pub that these bugatty lawyers seem to enjoy. They like to be told where to get off and probably visit the Seven Stars at lunch and then pay a ptitsa to beat them up in the evening or at least tie them to a bedpost whilst having some lubbilubbing, if you savvy my drift. By the way… the sex and ultraviolence combo are functions that Your Humble Narrator could have carried out most nobly in his days of old… whipping and tolchocking his way to glory whilst giving a devotchka the old in-out in-out. But greedy lawyer types remind me of the type of veck who me and my droogs used to crack in the bloody rot, the filthy fat sods. With a few backhand tolchocks and a sly bit of fist.

This landlady Roxy dama is a starry baboochka, made up like a character in the movies with rainbows round the glazzies and the rot painted wide. As well as running the place she is also the cook. And what a cook she is, brothers. The main courses are all priced at about £9 and it is hard to go wrong. In the coldness of a winter day you can enjoy prized treats such as guinea fowl or partridge. But it’s the attention to detail that I like. Food that is made with love, my brothers. The mashed kartoffel is mixed with eggiweg instead of butter and the aged rib-eye steak is hung to perfection, all meats being procured from a local butcher of sorts.

Other dishes may include Swedish specialities, also herring and dill salad, chicken and mushroom pie and Neapolitan sausages. Sausages are my favourite dish brothers because they are a phallus, a symbol of the old in-out in-out that I used to enjoy so much in my former days. With a giant codpiece on our Y-fronts and plastic Pinnochio penii on our noses us malchicks would raid houses in maskies and give the old surprise treatment to random devotchkas, young and old alike. If you could have viddied me then. Me being reformed now such thoughts of a night’s fillying make me somewhat sick to my guttiwuts but it is still like an itch that I cannot scratch.

Many everyday things take me back to those times, brothers. Not just the sausages… also the claret: the red red vino reminds me of what happens when you take a nozh and give a fair few swipes to some doddery old chelloveck. Open him up like a peapod and out comes the blood on tap, real beautiful.

But as far as vino goes the best of a good bunch in this mesto is the Argentinian Guggenheim (Malbec) - a snip at £16.50. Unlike most bars and restaurants The Seven Stars is very fair and just-like in their mark-up of its vino. For example, I savvy this Guggenheim effort would cost around £7.50 retail. So two and a bit times that much is far preferable to the usual three or three and a half.

For those who want to get fuelled up there is the wifebeating Bittburger on draft and also Guinness, the drink of choice for my business colleague – a veck we call “The Jackal”. He never puts his rooker in his pocket that one. But last time me and my droogs were in The Seven Stars we played the old spoof game... that being a game where one has to guess how much deng there is in everyone else’s rooker. Much high mirth we had that day. It goes without saying that your friend and Humble didn’t spend a single cent of cutter… what with being the brains of the outfit and all that cal. But many times there and back to the bar the Jackal was, O my brothers.

You may remember that I don’t much like cats, kots and koshkas. The lady at the crappy house I got caught crasting that fateful evening had hundred of pussies. The rozz patrol locked me up in the rozz shop that day and beat me good and proper, the vonny stinking bratties. But part of my rehabilitation treatment was that I had to stroke and play with all these mewing koshkas and thereby purge myself of evil feelings that remained in my gulliver. Well I must confess brothers that the cat who lives in The Seven Stars is a goodiwoody animal that spends its time lying mellow on the windowsill or even drinking moloko from a malenky saucer on the bar.

A mention here must now go to the cheeseboard and cold meat platter. That being cold meat not of the type I used to slice and dice but more in the vein of salami and parma ham. But after any meal in The Seven Stars the cheeseboard will be a challenge unless you buy yet more of the red red stuff. By 3.30 your bolshy brooko will be so full that you’ll pony what I’m getting at about the food being so good. In fact, you’ll feel like lying down bedways and having a spatchka.

O yes, with a bolshy great smile on your litso you can while away an afternoon in The Seven Stars, puffing snoutie cancers outside like a disgrace or cosied up in a snug, full of the joys-of. The losing track of time reminds me of the smacky Korova Milk Bar, getting sharpened up on the old milk-plus laced with vellocet and synthemesc.

Not many lewdies know about this gaff but trust me… when it comes to food and character this is the best pub in ye olde cittie of London. No fillying about, this is the dog’s yarbles. The Ludwig van. Wonder of wonders. Real horrorshow.

Alex rates The Seven Stars 10/10

Savage Cheyne