The Gun
Kotaro Ogawa, who runs Aragawa in Mayfair, reopened this Well Street pub in February 2026 pouring Guinness and cooking wagyu.1
Why go
The old Gun shut in March 2025, its owners saying that despite our very best efforts it has become unsustainable to continue trading
, and the same team still runs The Compton Arms in Islington.1 J-Pub Holdings bought it, and the man behind that company is Ogawa, whose Mayfair steakhouse sells beef at up to 230 pounds per 100g.1 The house bills the result as a traditional London pub reimagined with Japanese food, drinks and great Guinness
, and it opened again on 23 February 2026.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the wagyu and a pint of Guinness, which is the house's own instruction and Harden's records it as the mantra:
Come for the Guinness. Stay for the wagyu.
2 - Avoid: arriving with the old pub in mind. This is a different operator in the same building.1
What locals & experts say
- Harden's editors, on the relaunch:
'Come for the Guinness. Stay for the wagyu' is the mantra at this relaunched old Hackney boozer, which is now owned (of course it is) by the owners of posh Mayfair Japanese steakhouse Aragawa.
The same note reports that The Standard's Josh Barrie called ita blast
, which is Barrie's verdict reaching us through Harden's rather than a piece anybody here has read.2 - Harden's survey block is empty:
not enough people have commented yet
.2
Good to know
- How new it is: reopened 23 February 2026. Six months of trading at the time of writing.1
- Address: 235 Well Street E9 6FE, per the venue and Jeff's own pin. Harden's prints E9 6RG on its details block.1
- Hours and menu are not published in anything reachable here.
Verdict
could-visit — Kotaro Ogawa runs Aragawa in Mayfair, where Hot Dinners records steak going for as much as 230 pounds per 100g, and in February 2026 he bought a Hackney corner pub that had shut the previous March and reopened it pouring Guinness and cooking wagyu. Harden's summarizes the pitch in the house's own words: come for the Guinness, stay for the wagyu. That is a genuinely interesting proposition, a serious beef operator running the cheap end of his own supply out of a Well Street boozer, and it is also six months old with no survey feedback and no review anybody here has read at source. The Standard's Josh Barrie is reported to have called it a blast. Go and find out what a Mayfair beef buyer puts on a pub grill, and treat everything above as the story so far.