London Restaurants by category
Pubs are difficult things... The Camberwellians among you may remember the kerfuffle when the previous management team were unceremoniously dumped out of the Sun and Doves as was. They fought the tied pub co. and (unsurprisingly) the tied pub co. won.
It was a decent enough boozer, with community outreach aspirations, generic beers, fairly unforgettable grub and a regular film night. The medics from the local hospital who occupied it were friendly enough as long as you didn't try and compete in the hardest quiz night in the area.
When the previous management were finally (and brutally) removed, they stripped all of 'their' renovations out with them; fixtures, fittings, wall coverings and bar kit. Looking at the reopened bar, the new tenants have done a pretty good job of, well, leaving it in exactly the same condition. The decor and furniture takes stripped back shabby chic to a new level, this one barely one step up from squat party. As Camberwell is the new wherever achingly hip we're supposed to be, they've pitched it perfectly.
The beer and wine choices are as pedestrian as before, but the menu has been given a spruce. Loosely defined as the kind of gutsy, hearty pub fare you've seen bothering a thousand kilner jars on a thousand wooden chopping boards before.
A muted quinoa and roast vegetable salad was undoubtedly healthy, but as beige a dish in all senses of the word as you could find. As quiet as an unpopular 20 year old's house party and as instantly forgettable.
The lack of oomph sadly extended to a woefully under-powered bavette steak, its normally rich and meaty tang entirely missing in action. It was such an under seasoned tasteless piece of meat that it was virtually eclipsed by its side of cold and over cooked chips, god knows what would have happened if it had come with anything as flavoursome as a Bearnaise...
The thought is definitely there, burgers and sandwiches are perfectly acceptable and generally it's a fine looking classic pub menu, but it doesn't live up to the promise, which is a shame. That being said, it's a pub, not a restaurant, so if you're looking for a quick bite alongside a couple of drinks with friends then take advantage of their lovely beer garden, an excellent selection of tunes and remind yourself that it's who you're with that really matters.
Micro chain Le Comptoir Libanais aims to bring fast, affordable and 'fun' Lebanese casual dining to London. The first branch, in Westfield, obviously worked well as there's been a slew of them opening up elsewhere.
Having never understood why there aren't more casual lunch spots like this, I was initially entranced. Sure it's got a 'stop me and buy one' schtick borrowed from a Jamie's Italian or a Bill's Produce Store, with everything from salad dressing to handbags on sale in the souk inspired space, but it doesn't have quite the corporate roll out feel that you'd expect from one of those. Tightly and brightly jewelled shelves, a packed glass chiller at the back stuffed with healthy greens and cartoony colourful furniture - it's a lovely, fresh and open place to be on a summer's day.
Sadly, it was hard to be anything other than underwhelmed by the food we had over lunch. Simple and authentic it might (just) be, tasty it sadly wasn't.
I ended up with an overly salty halloumi salad, the four cold bits of squeaky cheese nestling apologetically on a bed of long ago prepared salad doused in an acrid dressing. The olives particularly were excruciatingly overpowering, exploding in the mouth like slimy, saline paintball pellets.
Alongside that we shared a plate of mixed mezze. A large enough portion, but nothing like large enough in taste. We left most of it to be collected, uncommented on, at the end. 'Highlights' included large dry falafel cannonballs, setting the cause of that noble dish back by years, their claggy mouthfeel reminding you why your mother always had to force you to eat chickpeas.
Alongside underpowered baba ganouch came glow in the dark purple stained turnip light sabres and kebab shop pickles. A brace of chiller cold pasties of indeterminate sort were also less than the sum of their (long ago prepared) parts - sparse filling sunk to the bottom like sediment in an unloved kettle.
Will it be a success? Sadly, almost certainly. Though the central locations will struggle to bring people back for a second visit, particularly if Yalla Yalla shifts up a gear and starts to roll out branches. Would I go back? Not without some coaxing. London isn't short of decent, authentic fast food in this style, it's just a pity that, with the exception of Yalla Yalla and Momo on Heddon Street, there ain't much of it round the central parts. It's just a pitta that none of the infinitely superior Edgeware Road or Knightsbridge brands haven't capitalised on that yet.
