Part of our Best Pubs in London microsite. Is your local listed?
A pub named after, and loosely themed around, a David Bowie persona? The idea had us dancing in the street, before we stopped being silly and stepped inside.
Starman is a sizeable modern pub, with a semi-traditional bar area at the front and a knock-through to a beer hall-slash-dining area out back. It can feel curiously cosy or forbiddingly large, depending on how busy it is — something of a space oddity. It needs to be big because this buzzing place off Regent Street is packed in evenings, putting bar staff under pressure.
OK, we'll quit the puns now.
You'll find various nods to the late singer around the bar. It's not just idle pastiche. Starman is located on Heddon Street, just metres from where Bowie posed for the album cover to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. A giant replica of that image can be found on the wall to the left of the bar.
Starman offers a decent range of keg beers, though nothing from the cask, unfortunately. The bar is much more handy with spirits, including an exceptional whisky menu featuring single malts from locations as unexpected as Taiwan, Australia and, um, England. You'll also find a short list of cocktails which, happily, avoid falling into the Bowie pun trap ("I'll have a Major Tom Collins and a Star Manhattan, please.")
They could be heroes.
