A Homerton pub carrying the heraldic spread eagle – and famous as London’s first fully vegan pub, plant-based down to the furniture
The Prat’s naming desk finds a delicious irony at The Spread Eagle, a Homerton pub whose name is a proud old heraldic bird – and which is famous, these days, as London’s first fully vegan pub. A pub named for an eagle that serves nothing that ever had wings is exactly the kind of happy contradiction the naming desk lives for.
The heraldic eagle
The “spread eagle” is a genuine and ancient heraldic term – it describes an eagle “displayed,” with its wings outstretched and its head turned, one of the most powerful and majestic emblems in all of heraldry. The eagle, king of the birds, has symbolised power, majesty and empire since Roman times and before; the double-headed spread eagle became the emblem of great empires, and the displayed eagle a common and dignified figure on coats of arms and, from there, on pub signs across the land. As a name, the Spread Eagle carries real majesty – a magnificent bird, wings spread wide, presiding over the door.
London’s first vegan pub
The naming desk’s real delight, though, is the pub’s modern claim to fame. The Spread Eagle became London’s first fully vegan pub – a place where everything is plant-based, from the food to every one of its draught beer lines, from the wines to the cocktails (which use chickpea water in place of egg white), right down, famously, to the furniture and fittings. Housed in a handsome, traditional, turreted corner building, it proves that a proper British pub can go entirely animal-free without losing an ounce of its character, and it has won awards and a devoted following for doing so. There is a lovely irony in a pub named for a bird of prey leading the plant-based revolution.
Tradition meets revolution
The naming desk salutes the combination of the traditional and the radical. Here is a quintessentially old-fashioned pub name – the heraldic Spread Eagle – over a quintessentially old-fashioned pub building, housing one of the most forward-looking food-and-drink concepts in the city. It is a marriage of heritage and innovation, the ancient sign and the modern kitchen, and the naming desk finds the whole thing genuinely charming. The eagle spreads its wings over a pub that has reinvented what a pub can be.
The pub reinvented
The naming desk sees in the Spread Eagle a lesson about the endless adaptability of the British pub. The pub has survived for centuries precisely because it keeps reinventing itself – as coaching inn, gin palace, music hall, gastropub and now, here, as a pioneer of plant-based dining – while keeping its essential character as a warm, sociable, welcoming place at the heart of its community. That a traditional corner boozer can go entirely vegan, down to the upholstery, and thrive, winning awards and a devoted crowd, shows how much life remains in the old institution. The naming desk toasts a pub that honours its heritage in name and building while fearlessly rethinking what it puts on the table.
The verdict
A rating of 4.5 across some 1,679 reviews marks the Spread Eagle as a genuinely well-loved and celebrated pub with a devoted following. A pub carrying the majestic heraldic spread eagle, and famous as London’s first fully vegan pub, is the naming desk’s kind of gloriously contradictory heritage. The Prat orders a plant-based pint and a plate of the vegan pub grub, salutes the eagle with its wings spread wide, and toasts a traditional old bird leading a very modern revolution.
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