The Newman Arms

Three different operators have rebuilt this pub in eight years and every one of them has kept the pie room upstairs.

Why go

It has been a pub since 1860, and before that a candle-maker's, an ironmonger's, a picture framer's and, by local account, a brothel. A mural of a nineteenth-century prostitute survives on a bricked-up upstairs window and a plaque commemorates a former landlord who "regularly swore at everybody on these premises" (The Upcoming). George Orwell put it in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Dylan Thomas drank in it (Hot Dinners). The recent history matters more for planning. It closed around 2017, reopened in May 2018 under a Truman's Brewery fit-out with twelve keg lines and a twenty-four seat pie room, had a burger residency in the building by late 2024, and reopened again in late summer 2025 after a refurbishment under new management. The pie room came through all of it, now cooking traditional British pies from organic ingredients sourced from English farmers.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the chicken, ham hock and creamed leek pie, which the house leads on, or the aged beef shin and rib with Murphy's stout gravy, creamy mash and roasted hispi cabbage. Start with the crispy lamb belly.
• Avoid: arriving for the Truman's beer operation, which was two changes of hands ago, and assuming the pie room takes walk-ins, because it has always been about two dozen seats.

What locals & experts say

• Catherine Hanly, Hot Dinners (18 May 2018), on the previous relaunch: "the 18th century boozer has also had a bit of a makeover by Truman's Brewery and has just reopened for business. The pub which was made famous by George Orwell, garnering a mention in Nineteen Eighty-Four and was also a popular drinking spot of Dylan Thomas, has expanded its beer and food offering." News coverage, so a fact about the pub rather than a verdict on it. ref
• The Upcoming's food desk (25 October 2025), on what is there now: the pub "reopened to the public late this summer following a significant refurbishment" and is "Managed by Experience Capital Group", with the upstairs pie room "preserved and updated". Unbylined, so the desk rather than a person. ref
• No critic has reviewed the reopened pub, and no chef or bartender in places-db/london/data/chef-votes.jsonl names it. Searched 1 August 2026. That is why confidence on this entry is low and why the rung is where it is.

Good to know

• Where: 23 Rathbone Street, Fitzrovia W1T 1NG, a few minutes from Tottenham Court Road.
• The pie room: upstairs, about two dozen seats in the Truman's era, and worth booking.
• Downstairs: two snugs were built in 2018, the Prole's Parlour for eight to twelve and The Orwell for up to six. Whether they survived the 2025 refurbishment is not established.
• Booking: advisable.
• Hygiene: the only FSA registration at this address is for "Saucy Bastards @ The Newman Arms", rated 5 on 3 December 2024 with components 5, 5 and 5. That is a burger residency that preceded the current management, so it is not a rating of the kitchen serving now. ref
• Website: none recorded. The 2018 domain is stale and no current official site was verified.
• Michelin: not recorded either way. Our cached Michelin data is stars only.

Jeff's take (his words)

Jeff has no note on this one. The saved-places export carries an empty Note for the row, so jeff_note stays empty and nothing here is attributed to him. The master spreadsheet called it Orwell's local, which is folklore; what the sources support is a mention in Nineteen Eighty-Four, and that is what the entry says.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

could-visit — It has been licensed since 1860 and it was a candle-maker's, an ironmonger's, a picture framer's and, by local account, a brothel before that. A mural of a nineteenth-century prostitute is still on a bricked-up upstairs window, and there is a plaque to a former landlord that reads 'Joe Jenkins, ex-proprietor, poet, bon viveur, and Old Git, regularly swore at everybody on these premises.' Orwell put it in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Dylan Thomas drank in it. What matters more is that it has been rebuilt twice in eight years: Truman's Brewery reopened it in May 2018 with twelve keg lines and a twenty-four seat pie room, a burger residency was in the building by late 2024, and new management refurbished it and reopened in late summer 2025 under Experience Capital Group. The pie room survived all of that, and the pies are now built on organic ingredients from English farms: chicken, ham hock and creamed leek, or aged beef shin and rib with Murphy's stout gravy. Nobody with a byline has eaten there since it reopened, so go on the history and the pie, and do not go expecting anything the older write-ups describe.