this pub specialises in northern beers and the food is gastro pub food, a primarily modern European format that typically leads to pubs selling food at
mid range restaurant prices. I stuck to a relatively weak beer called W90 which had a strong hoppy taste despite being only 3.8 percent volume. it was
brewed by the Marble brewery in Manchester. The Cask pub and kitchen is not cheap. This beer cost £3.35 a pint but then Pimlico is on the posh side. This pub should be visited by all people who think the British can’t brew beer. They will taste some British beers that prove Britain is just as good as Belgium and Germany when it comes to brewing. In Belgium and Germany however they had the sense to produce bottled versions of ales as well. We are starting to do this as you can tell by visiting any supermarket but I digress!
for food I had baby squid stuffed with chick peas and chorizo Spanish sausage served with French bread. this was a beautiful starter and a small meal in
itself. for main I had an 8 ounce rib eye steak served with béarnaise sauce and home made chips. they insist on calling them hand cut on these stupid gastro
menus but the way the chip is cut is not the point. The real question is whether the chip is fresh or frozen and it would be good to know what kind of oil it is fried in. The chips were good and crispy anyway. the Béarnaise sauce was not quite as buttery as some I have
had though there was plenty of pepper corns in it.
The food in this pub is not cheap though it is pretty good. Words like “Hand cut”, “placed on a thick bed of”, and the use of terms like Jus all point to a gastro menu. My squid starter cost about £7 and the steak cost me £15 but at least portion size was quite generous.
The web site for the pub is
If you visit the home page you will get an idea of the music that is played. It’s all background jazz music and for me all this does is to make the atmosphere slightly pretentious and arguably even intimidating or elitist, not to say a little boring for those who work there. I would even say that I visit this pub because of its great beer and I go back despite the slightly ponsy up its own arse atmosphere.
Despite the music however I have generally found staff to be helpful and quite knowledgeable about their beers. I would give this pub an over all mark of 7.5 out of 10. If I were just going on beer alone it would get 9 out of 10. High prices would mean that it would be hard to make this pub a real local visit for a few beers a day job.
