At heart this is a local pub, but everything about it is dialled up a couple of notches

The Hero, 55 Shirland Road, London W9 2JD. Snacks £6-£13, starters £9-£14, mains £13-£18, desserts £8, wine from £32 a bottle

The Hero, a pub in London’s Maida Vale, is currently a middle-class rave fuelled by a crisp gavi and banging scotch eggs. You will hear it before you see it, as the sounds of the west London mob outside, smoking like it’s 1992, float towards you down tidy streets of wedding cake stucco. To get a sense of the place, however, let’s first pop into the gents at the back. There, standing side by side at the urinals, are two chaps who are not quite young but also not quite middle aged: tousled hair, many opinions, saggy jeans that have never seen better days because they came out of the box like this. One of them says: “I think it’s time I tried the country. I love the country.” The other says: “No, no, I’m all about the city. So many possibilities.”