There is a particular kind of joy that comes with hearing about a £5 pint in central London in 2026. It sounds almost nostalgic — the sort of price you half-expect to find only on a faded chalkboard in a time capsule. But from Monday 12 October, it will be very real: a brand-new British pub called The Last Exchange is opening its doors at 11 Exchange Square in Broadgate, moments from Liverpool Street station, with house pints starting at a fiver.
The promise is simple, and deliberately so. The Last Exchange wants to “do the pub properly”: good British food, good beer, and a room you actually want to linger in. The headline act at the bar will be the pub’s own beer, The City Scribbler, alongside a line-up of house pints from £5 — a genuine statement of intent in a part of town where a round for four can easily nudge £30.
What will be on the menu
The kitchen is pitching itself as classic British cooking with a more refined touch — familiar dishes, sharpened up rather than reinvented. The opening menu reads like a love letter to the British pub canon: battered oysters with Exchange tartare, a deep-filled beef shin pie served with mash, greens and proper gravy, and something called The Breville — a beef mince toastie with Lea & Perrins gravy for dipping.
That last one deserves a moment. The name is a wink at the sandwich toaster that has browned a million late-night cheese toasties, and the Lea & Perrins dipping gravy is the kind of detail that tells you the kitchen understands its brief. This is comfort food that knows exactly what it is.
More than an evening boozer
The Last Exchange is planning to run well beyond the usual City pub hours. Mornings will begin with coffee on the terrace overlooking Exchange Square, the day rolling through lunch into after-work drinks and dinner. There will be private dining for groups and — reassuringly — a traditional Sunday roast on the menu every week.
It is a schedule built around the idea of a pub as an all-day local rather than a pit stop between the office and the train home. The team behind it say they want to create a proper community feel in the City, somewhere people stay because they want to, not because they are waiting for a delayed train.
“Somewhere you can lose track of time”
Andrew Garton, chief executive of Publican Estate, the company behind the opening, said the ambition was to build the kind of pub you walk into and immediately feel at home in. “Somewhere you can come in for a pint, stay for dinner, lose track of time, and end up having another one,” he said. “We’re keeping things simple — properly made British food, good beer, warm hospitality, and that old-school feeling that pubs used to do so well.”
Why Broadgate, why now
The opening lands at an interesting moment for the streets around Liverpool Street. For decades the area was shorthand for the Monday-to-Friday City: busy at lunchtime, deserted by eight. That has been changing fast. The Elizabeth line has turned Liverpool Street into one of the busiest interchanges in the country, Broadgate’s public spaces have been reworked into somewhere people actually want to spend time, and the whole district is gradually becoming a place for evenings and weekends — not just working hours.
A proper pub with sensible prices feels like a missing piece of that puzzle. The Last Exchange is openly positioning itself as part of the shift: a place that gives people a reason to stick around after the working day ends, whether that is a post-work pint, a Friday night dinner or a slow Sunday lunch. If the City is serious about becoming a seven-day neighbourhood, it needs pubs that treat locals and lingering drinkers as the main event rather than an afterthought.
Classic British pub food, done properly
There is also something telling about the menu’s direction. The current wave of ambitious London pubs has moved past the era when “gastropub” meant a burger with a fried egg on top. Instead, the smartest operators are doing what The Last Exchange promises: taking the dishes everyone grew up with — pies, toasties, roasts, gravy — and simply making them properly. Good beef, real gravy, careful cooking, no fuss.
It is a harder trick than it looks. Anyone can charge £24 for a pie; making a beef shin pie with mash and greens feel like the best value on the street takes confidence in the basics. Pair that with a £5 house pint and you have a formula that respects both the customer and the tradition — which, when you think about it, is what the great British pub was always supposed to do.
A busy season for London’s pubs
The Last Exchange arrives in a lively period for the capital’s pub scene. The boarded-up Camden Road Arms has just reopened with live music and a new look, Wetherspoons has revealed six new London openings, and at the other end of the trade the historic Hope & Anchor in Islington is searching for a new landlord — a reminder that for every new opening, another much-loved boozer is fighting for its future.
The details
The Last Exchange opens on Monday 12 October 2026 at 11 Exchange Square, Broadgate, London EC2A 2BR — a short walk from Liverpool Street station. House pints start at £5, including the pub’s own The City Scribbler. Expect morning coffee on the terrace, lunch, after-work drinks, dinner, private dining and a traditional Sunday roast.
For City workers and locals alike, it could quickly become one of those rare things: a new favourite that feels like it has always been there.
