Postcard from... Los Angeles

Wednesday night is curry and darts night at The Lost Knight, a new, self-described “British Pub” in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles. So far, so authentic. But spend more than a few minutes at the bar in this ersatz-English drinking establishment, and you’ll start to spot the Americanised details. Not many London locals have valet parking, do they?

That pint you’re drinking – the one with the two-inch head – isn’t a pint at all. Or at least not a British Imperial pint. It’s actually the 20 per cent smaller US pint. The barman who served it to you? He’s more of a cocktail waiter. The beer itself is a Three Weavers Hounslow Porter. But it wasn’t brewed in Hounslow; it was brewed in Inglewood, in south LA. And the televised football? ‘Soccer’, of course.

In the UK, we’re accustomed to beloved old pubs being turned into trendy new bars. Here, a beloved Mexican restaurant has been turned into a trendy new pub. It’s not the only British-themed hostelry in Greater LA – there’s The Pikey in Hollywood and The King’s Head in Santa Monica, to name but two.

The Scottish-ish Tam O’Shanter in Atwater has been around longer than any of them: the great Walt Disney used to eat there when his studio was nearby.