Walkabout has thinned out across Britain, and Morten Andersen counts the survivors with some affection. The Temple site is the last Walkabout standing in central London, and it still does exactly what the chain was built to do.
The Walkabout brand started in the 1980s as an Australian-themed pub aimed at the homesick and the thirsty. The Covent Garden original, the first of the run, opened in the mid-1990s and closed in March 2013, as the chain's own history records. Temple Place carried the flame, and after an £800,000 refurbishment it leans on big screens, late licences and a steady supply of Antipodean staff and regulars.
The layout is a long, deep barn of a room set just back from the Embankment. There is a main bar, a raft of screens, and a drop-down for the games that pull a crowd. It is not subtle and was never meant to be. Rugby internationals are the heart of the calendar, the Ashes turn it into a corner of Sydney, and the AFL grand final draws an early-morning fixture of Australians who treat it as a fixture of the calendar.
To drink, it is schooners and pints of lager rather than hand-pulled cask, with a short cocktail list that does its job on a Friday. The kitchen runs the expected pub plates, burgers, loaded fries and a roast when the timing suits. Reckon on £6 to £7 a pint, less on the regular sport-night deals.
This is a destination for noise and late hours, not a quiet half. Anyone after a traditional London boozer should see our London bar guide instead. For the wider field of screens-and-pints rooms, our roundup of the best sports bars in London sets Walkabout against the city's other big-match venues, and it holds its own on capacity and licence alone.
What to order sits firmly in the Antipodean register. A schooner of lager runs about £5.50, a plate of loaded fries to share roughly £8, and a burger £13 or so, which is the kitchen's safest bet on a busy night. The regular sport-night deals shave a pound or two off the pints, which is the version of value this place trades in.
Who it is for is plain enough to anyone who has set foot in a Walkabout before. Australians and New Zealanders abroad, rugby and cricket followers chasing an awkward time-zone fixture, and stag and hen groups after a late, loud night all find their level here. Anyone wanting a quiet, characterful London pub should walk the ten minutes into Covent Garden instead and leave the schooners to the homesick.
The room is a deep, dark barn that fills from the screens outward, with standing space where the tables run out. Booths line the edges for groups who book ahead, and the late licence means the sport rolls into a club night without anyone being asked to leave. It is not a place for a fixed agenda, which is part of its charm.
Best time to go is a southern-hemisphere kickoff: a Saturday rugby international or an Ashes session, when the room is full and the accent is firmly Australian. Avoid a quiet Monday, when a barn this size feels its emptiness. It is closed on Sundays, so plan around that.
Walkabout Temple is a relic that still works. It survives because it never overreached, kept the screens big and the licence late, and gave a particular crowd a particular home. For watching sport with the southern hemisphere, there is nothing else quite like it left in the middle of London.
Sources: Walkabout official site; Time Out London listing; Yelp (Temple Place, updated 2026).
