Kings Head

You walk into the Kings Head and immediately feel like you've stumbled into the kind of place locals have been coming to for years. It's on Old Road, away from the seafront chaos, which already tells you something about its character. The crowd here is genuinely mixed—regulars nursing pints at the bar, groups of friends claiming corner tables, families actually enjoying themselves without anyone making a fuss about it. It's got that rare quality of feeling both welcoming and unpretentious, the sort of pub where the staff know what they're doing and the atmosphere builds naturally rather than being manufactured. With a 4.5-star rating across nearly 1,900 reviews, it's clearly doing something right—and it's the kind of endorsement that comes from people who actually live here, not just passing through.