Richard Mully's Basement Bar

You're heading down worn stairs into the bowels of the Lewis Building on Gower Street, leaving the slightly sterile world of Bloomsbury behind. Richard Mully's is unapologetically a student bar—the kind of place where a pint won't cost you £8 and nobody's pretending to be anywhere else. The basement setting means low ceilings, dim lighting, and that particular acoustic where everyone sounds louder than they actually are. It's the sort of venue that thrives on crowd energy rather than careful design; you go because your mates are there, because the prices won't wreck your week, and because on a good night it's genuinely buzzing. The bar attracts everyone from UCL students to local Bloomsbury workers who remember when drinks cost even less.