Royal Exchange

The first things you notice on entering corner pub The Royal Exchange are the vinyl turntables, mixer and amp, which occupy about 20 percent of the floor space. In a compact pub like this - two rooms; one showing live sport, a single bar along one wall - the effect is like parking a Range Rover in your kitchen.

But music is the heart of this place. Should you wish, you can attend themed nights with DJs spinning Italo disco, reggae country, garage rock, goth, darkwave and industrial, Colombian cumbia, world music, space music, all of them with painfully cool flyers styled like old fanzines. Oh, and they have an anti-Glastonbury event called Glasnotbury. 

A regular visitor to the pub and occasional Thursday night DJ is Paul Simonon, bassist with The Clash. His influence might explain the decor, which is revolutionary Cuba by way of west London. The Sandinista! album lives on in spirit here.

From outside, where street drinking happens, the tableau feels like something from the past: the pub has its original gorgeous tiles and unfussy signage. Simonon clearly appreciates that too - he’s exhibited a painting of the pub’s exterior.

On our early evening visit, the place was populated by sharply dressed older Jamaican men in wide-brimmed hats and overcoats, some after-work drinkers, a couple of punks and a chap who looked like Joe Strummer, complete with quiff and leather jacket, who had a lot to tell me about conspiracy theories and wore a 9/11 truther T-shirt. 

That kind of behaviour might seem out of place in any other pub this close to bustling Paddington station, an area absolutely not known for good boozers or conspiracy theorists. But at The Royal Exchange a shared conspiracy or two feels pretty apt. Perhaps he was there for the space music.

Order this

Something with rum in it

Time Out tip

Still thirsty? Sit in actual Concorde seats at love-it-or-hate-it nearby aviation-themed pub The Sussex Arms.