Many pints have flowed at this corner hotel since it was built in 1853. Its latest incarnation is as a chef-driven gastropub. Towards the end of the week, it can be a fight for elbow room in the tiled front bar as punters pile in for one of 10 tap beers and superior bar snacks such as creamy whipped cod roe dotted with salmon roe. Beyond is a bistro, a stark space with whitewashed walls and timber floors that resound with the buzz of today's Fitzrovians enjoying a utopian vision of pub grub. Fish pie might arrive as a golden-domed beauty harbouring chunks of smoked trout, rockling, prawns and tiny capers in a wine-enriched sauce, and steak and chips as a dry-aged Cape Grim rib-eye with hand-cut, twice-cooked chips. Dessert might be ginger pud and custard or a coupe of peach gelato. Fitzroy's founders would surely approve.