Highgate · Haringey
The Boogaloo
Highgate's rock and roll living room, once ruled over by Shane MacGowan
- Address312 Archway Road, Highgate, London, N6 5AT
- Phone020 8340 2928
- Websitetheboogaloo.co.uk
- OwnershipIndependent pub
About The Boogaloo
An independent live-music pub on Archway Road that became the unofficial clubhouse of London's indie and folk scenes through the 2000s.
Originally a plain neighbourhood boozer, the pub was reinvented in the early 2000s and quickly became notorious as the near-daily haunt of Shane MacGowan of The Pogues, who lived locally and treated the place as an extension of his own front room until his death in November 2023. Pete Doherty and Carl Barat of The Libertines also drank and wrote here during the band's most volatile years, and the back room has hosted impromptu sets from musicians including members of Primal Scream and The Clash. The jukebox, stocked floor to ceiling with vinyl from Johnny Cash to The Smiths, is treated with something close to reverence by regulars. It still runs as an independent free house with a beer garden, quiz nights, market stalls and a genuinely unpredictable gig calendar, trading on the same scrappy, bohemian energy that drew in the rock stars two decades ago.
On tap
Timothy Taylor Landlord as a regular cask ale alongside standard lagers, ciders and a well-stocked spirits bar
Food
No kitchen — it is a drinking and live-music venue rather than a dining pub
More pubs in Highgate
- The WrestlersA Highgate village inn with a one-star heritage interior
- Red Lion & SunA 1920s Elizabethan-style Highgate local with front and back gardens