The Old Man and the C*** – The Hunter S., De Beauvoir, N1

Coming on like first time parents dead set on out-doing their peers, the folks behind Victoria Park’s The Hemingway agonised over it for long enough they saw fit to baptise its baby sister pub, The Hunter S. . Instantly familiar if you know the former but blessed of a better space and some amazing touches internally, God it’s a shame about the name. I mean, I get where they’re coming from, running with the writer thing, the onus evidently being on ones with a rep. But, while I know he was a piss head and a pugilist and used to knock around with Nat King Cole, at least Hemingway’s catalogue carries a bit of the man’s own considerable weight. Landmark though Fear and Loathing… is/was, as far as this generation’s concerned Thompson is all about the excess, and probably now mined mainly by the sort of shithead also taken with Howard Marks.  I don’t know, maybe it shows an appreciation of their audience, being in De Beauvoir and all. Maybe all these staggeringly pretty people would be here anyway if they’d just kept it simple.

Otherwise this is an excellent boozer. There are some near things in this part of town – The Talbot and The Scolt Head show glimpses, for example, the Duke of Wellington is solid but scruffy – but the Hunter S. is the most complete. It wins out, really, by combining a fancy yet functional aesthetic with some genuine application around good bar product. There’s enough of the safe and sound – Landlord and a superb Sharp’s Cornish Coaster –  to offset the comparably kitsch – Lowenbrau, anyone? – and a concise cross-section of the current – bottled Brooklyn, among others.  But the look and feel is also great. The ceiling has the most incredible copper leaf recess from which hangs the showiest of chandeliers. The handsome over-kill of stuffed animals lining the walls are too many not to presume they aren’t deliberately overdone. And the toilets, the Gents anyway, are a reason in themselves to pay a visit here. Fear it, though – if you’re anything like me on a hangover, the ‘art’ in there is likely to have you re-emerge feeling fruity and with renewed focus.

As it happens I was in the grip of hangover whilst there, hence hankering after Fish and Chips. Easy on the eye in terms of a plateful, a largely lovely take on the classic was hamstrung rather by the kitchen’s determination to do chips differently. Not so much hand cut as hand carved, they were robust enough that even triple-cooked they’d have been brittle. There was enough right with it, however, and enough else about the menu to go back for. Service wise it’s a little laid back, and intermittently icy at the bar, but generally well-intentioned and you get a good sense of who’s in charge. At least if the guy I’m talking about isn’t already, he absolutely should be.

Yep, really decent addition to East London’s pub landscape, this. And don’t people seem to be acknowledging that? Sunday evening and, for anyone who landed much after us, there was a distinct shortage of somewhere to sit. With that in mind the management could probably afford to be more economical with the practical population of what’s truly a fantastic space. Not only would it make commercial sense, but would help preclude the sort of slovenly, full length, feet up behaviour brought by one trendy prick ostensibly set on converting a smart settee into a chaise. Oi, Ratface? Yeah, you. Would you do that at home….? 

Wishing y’all a long hot Summer.

Sorry it’s been a while…

Photos not lifted from elsewhere for once. Arse courtesy of Crowy.

Sound Thinking – Doc’s, Bainbridge Island, Seattle, WA

Perversely – or not, really – it seems all one has to do to encourage traffic to one’s blog is stop writing it. I’m telling you, viewing figures here have never been so healthy. Certainly not as consistent. Even back when I was convincing myself there might be real mileage in writing as a full-time pursuit. When I would tell myself I was honing my style, confident that time spent in the field, plus a track record of modest success in the industry, might qualify me to comment broadly on contemporary hospitality. And thinking people might give two shits. Even then my readership was never really ripped. Or regular.

So, what? Why cut short the sabbatical? Few reasons, actually. Some more obvious than others. Firstly, it seemed a shame to just down tools. Particularly now search engines, even via terms as tenuous as ‘shaved cock public’ , are sending unsuspecting suckers my way. In line with that, and with the above, it would make sense to give them something to go on. If only to demonstrate I’m not dead. Also, I’ve made friends because of this blog. Some in other countries. I rather feel like I owe them this much. But more than anything, the other night, and it was sparked I think by a photograph on Facebook of Seattle in the snow, I got nostalgic for an environment I’ve had a diminished appetite for in recent months. Professionally and socially. And actually. I got crook over Christmas and only now find myself minded, and still only in moderation, to get back amongst it. Pint here, pie there. I’ve never physically seen Seattle in the snow, but I have been. I spent a boozy week there back in 2009. The majority of my time I spent downtown doing in drip coffee and just-caught crab sandwiches, hanging around Pike Place, going to gigs and, yeah, royally pissing it up. But then there was also a weekend spent on Bainbridge Island. Wow. If you’ve any notion of what the Pacific North West in its pomp should look like, or if you’ve read any Stephanie Meyers (which I haven’t), it looks a lot like this. Trees, sky, and God’s own mood lighting. The quiet roads there shine with rain that only seemed to fall when you weren’t looking. I gather I was lucky with the weather.

Doc’s is right on the harbour. I don’t know what I drank. Save for some snack food I didn’t really eat there either. It doesn’t matter. I just know how it felt to be there late on a Sunday afternoon, college football on the ‘tube’, a vista of tethered boats through the window, fading light. Beers. Pretty special. I recall checking myself and registering that in the context of a trip on which I’d felt most at ease when in transit between places, this was probably as relaxed as I’d been when in one. A proper moment. I like thinking about it. So I thought I’d write about it.

Happy New Year.

Pictures courtesy of Jim Thomsen and and BeerAdvocate.com

Dad’s Mad – Father’s Office, Santa Monica, CA

Father’s Office is a decent operation. Purveyors of a sensational variety of craft beers, they employ proficient, informed staff to pour them, and offer tasty, uncomplicated food at value. Problem is, they do so, at least they did on this occasion, with such self-regard, such a sense of entitlement, that I’ve been smarting about it ever since.

But then maybe that’s as much because, while there, I made a cock of myself. It’s worth saying we’d arrived having spent the previous 15 hours or so in transit from London. I was tired and in no small part, probably, disorientated. Which wasn’t the fault of our hosts. Nor, really, was the degree to which I let their not-unreasonable or uncommon open-seating policy unsettle me to such a state of high fucking anxiety. I was spooned out, perhaps, by the way the dude on the door threw down the deal as some sort of gauntlet to run. The responsibility, I’m embarrassed to say, of being live enough to acquire the four of us the first available berth proved almost too much to bear. I broke into a fit of Englishness so awkward I was asked in no uncertain terms to ‘just relax’ by the nice girl who, under peer-pressure, I’d pestered for a provisional table share. When she and her friend indeed relinquished their spot to us, it was with a politely condescending, ironic hand on my shoulder she said, ‘It’s all yours, baby’. By ‘baby’, she of course meant ‘dickhead’.

Befitting of the format, and pertinent in the context of the unfolding story, the only thing you get served at Father’s Office tables is food, which you’ve to order at the bar. Although it’s not so much served as brought.  Beers you need to get yourself. Which is totally fine. There’s a long list to look at so it’s as well you do, frankly. Less conducive to a comfortable evening is the fact you’ve to eat under the close and intensifying scrutiny of a swelling mass of folks forced to play the game we just had. Boldness and a distinct lack of social scruples wins out here. Manners will only leave you malnourished. Except if you’re two quasi attractive girls, in which case the ‘maitre-d’, presumably in the hope he might score points and subsequently get some, may well assist in procuring you a table.

When the bill landed I opted to pay with what US dollar I had on me. Which is to say with enough to cover the cost of what we’d had and, on balance of an ok evening – company notwithstanding; my friends are awesome – a conservative tip. Knowing full well that would constitute less than, as far as I’ve seen, west coast wait staff expect as a matter of fucking course, I told our server he’d been excellent as I handed over the money. To say how he appeared to accept his share of the change was ungracious is to go easy on him. He clearly felt he was better than that. He probably had been, individually. Collectively, Father’s Office, on the strength of tonight, had not. It’d been intense. Rushed and uncomfortable. And, outside of us having been politely obliged what we’d asked and now paid for, no one had really extended themselves.

So, having gesticulated something to the effect of ‘mean, motherfucking son of a bitch’, our man turned back from the register to find me still there, proffering him plastic. ‘Couldn’t help but notice you didn’t seem too happy about what I’d left. If that wasn’t good enough, mate, take more off that…’. ‘What?’. He was irritated. Self-conscious, hopefully. He should have been. I’d explained my position; I’d just landed in the country. Not only was that all I had, it was all I was inclined to give. Which is why I paid him the compliment. ‘I appreciate you sayin’ that’, he said, ‘but, just so you know, that’s a lot less than we’d expect on top of a $120 bill…’.

Different culture, different pay structure; I don’t care. Unless there’s a hint of appreciation on the part of the person looking after us that the all round experience needs to have been good, and a sense that it’s been, in part, a pleasure to deliver it, you might as well be giving alms as leaving a tip. You expected more, did you? So did I. I wanted to make a point to this guy. Like, it’s not about money, it’s about attitude. So, after we left, I walked to a cash point, withdrew some more wedge and, leaving the guys at the car, went right back. ‘I want all of this to go in your pocket’, I said, handing over way more than our evening had been worth. ‘And for the record, when I leave a tip it’s a reflection on the whole thing’.

I don’t enjoy thinking about it. It makes me anxious and I’m coy about getting cross. And, far from getting my point over, he probably just saw it as him getting his deserts. But it remains the only time I’ve ever been chased out of a bar by staff and have gratitude hurled after me down the street; ‘Hey, Pal! Pal…! Thankyou!’. Whatever, boss. I didn’t do it for you.

Nice burgers, though…

Photos courtesy of those with the presence of mind to take them. And careless enough to post them without thinking about who might use them to their own end. Cheers.

Lady Instead – The Lady Ottoline (prev. The Kings Arms), Northing Street, Bloomsbury, WC1

I once wrote somewhere here that part of the process of reinventing a pub previously dead in the water might conceivably and justifiably involve changing its name. Contentious, as a statement of intent, but carry-offable if you’re cute. If you’re good and your predecessors were especially bad.

I never knew the King’s Arms off John Street before new owners came in and saw fit to call it The Lady Ottoline. Probably wouldn’t have cared to, either. But without disputing the relevance of the title to this part of town, or indeed that the new administration’s general practice would knock that of the old King’s caretakers’ into a cocked hat, the planning department’s apparent insistence that outward evidence of the old name be retained – the windows are embossed accordingly – I’m not sure I wouldn’t have left well alone here. As much as anything because as pub names go, The King’s Arms is a good one, and The Lady Ottoline is not. It’s rubbish.

The overhaul they’ve given it isn’t rubbish. It’s perfectly tasteful, even if its approach is identifiable among a million and one other overhauls affected lately. The back bar configuration in particular, in all its grey-ish wood grandeur, looks expensive and reflects an attitude toward providing a high quality offer. Smart, extendable tables are spaced artfully and ergonomically, the lighting is set to ambient, and the music to a playlist founded in the Forties. Which works in a building whose character charm remains well intact in spite of the work it’s had done.

Fingers and I arrived there early evening and signalled our intention to eat. Knowing full-well there’s a separate restaurant upstairs I was surprised, given the girl who’d met us was dressed differently to her colleagues and apparently in charge, not to have our dining options broken down beyond being told what time the kitchen opened. No matter, we ordered beers – the ales among which were moody – and set our stall out at a table at the far end of the room. The Bar Menu was brought and yielded an infinitely accessible, appetising-sounding selection of everything you’d expect from a good one, priced exactly as you’d hope if it was to be decent. We went balls out for the Burger. A juicy, 8oz bastard with plum chutney, foie gras and truffle mayonnaise. Two of. Great; sounded, and proved to be, exactly what we wanted.

Only then, though, when Fingers wondered out loud if we were required to re-locate upstairs to eat, did an in-earshot, suddenly over-attentive member of staff weigh in with the news that we might just be letting the best in life pass us by in settling for the Bar Menu, that there was a full a la carte card in operation on the first floor. Perhaps you’d have been better off advertising that before we’d chosen from the one menu you did decide to divulge, I thought, and represent the whole offer, rather than decide on our behalf that what was doing downstairs would see us right. The fact it absolutely did is neither here nor there. We could, for all they knew, have been a couple of proper high-rollers, ready to rinse 4 courses of their higher-end chow down with a couple of bottles of Domaine Mestre Michelot Meursault at £54.95 a pop. We weren’t, like, but, you know? At least give us the dime tour. Failing that, if there is a colour option on the burger, give us it. Not to is lazy, if the chef’s amenable – which, if he’s worth his salt he should be – and undoes an awful lot of the work I know the management have invested here to try, as I say, to lay the foundations of  a good gastronomic experience. Afters fell similarly short of the mark. A (deliberately) Burnt Lemon Tart with Lemon Souffle and Raspberry Jelly just about gave value at £5.95, the Cheeses, at £2.50 a go across four, did not. At all.

On the subject of the Meursault – not that I gave it a second look; drinking fat, expensive whites like this to me is like drinking melted butter – the wine list at The Lady O is a real credit to the place. Presented in hard back, it remains approachable, offers great value and variety, interesting Old World and niche among New, and specifically a punchy, more than palatable Cotes du Rhone for about £26. Took care of an uncalled for, extra glass with my short-change cheese too.

Try as it might, The Lady Ottoline is one of those places, one would guess, that will never be seen by anyone who ever knew it before as anything other than the King’s Arms. Which is not to say that it isn’t a mostly successful shot at boozer re-birth. The shop-fit stinks of quality craftsmanship, the cooking is cracking on this low-key evidence and its wine list is a winner. The beer was lame, however, which will need addressing should it ever aspire to neighbourhood status AND that as a destination dining room.  Over and above that, though, the wait staff – of whom I’d been primed to expect good things – will need to apply themselves a sight better to their theme than they did tonight before their rating as the latter is elevated beyond being just a decent alternative.

Bottoms up, Fingers. You’re golden, man. x

Photos courtesy of The Lady herself.

Ruination IPA Day – Gjelina, Venice, CA.

Abbot Kinney Blvd. is a thoroughfare, man. Even accounting for the extent to which I’m inordinately impressed by almost everything out here, one could comfortably spend a whole day walking up and down it, inhaling its relaxed, retail/residential vibe, trying and failing to put into words precisely what it is that makes it feel so fucking cool to me. It represents a lifestyle, I guess. One to which there appears very little urgency but that, at the same time, inspires you to get busy living. Creating. And realising some goals. I’d love to feel as passionately about my high street.

Gjelina is at the corner with Milwood Avenue. Anthracite and angular on the outside, inside it’s utilitarian but with texture, functional but with lots of flourishes. It’s Monday and it’s humming. I’d been told to expect indifference from the hostesses but they were fine. Brisk but cordial, they advised us a wait of up to 30 minutes was likely before space would become available, and that it’d be at one of two communal tables that splay from the room’s island bar. As it turned out we were seated in barely 10, and at our own, but not before being furnished with drinks – a Bordeaux blend from Washington State’s Gilbert Cellars, and a Stone Brewing Co. Ruination IPA.

The menu’s a knockout. An object lesson in sourcing, there was loads about the largely vegetarian card to distract even the most rapacious carnivore. I’m an open-minded mutha, but the irregularity with which I eat out these days ( in the UK, anyway…) means that, given the option, I’ll more often than not regress to red meat. Such an obviously considered, cosmopolitan card as this though, is a real credit to the farmer’s market sensibilities of its creators. I could have pinned the tail on the donkey and been as unreservedly pleased with whatever I wound up with. Our approach was more measured than that of course, and the fact that what I ultimately wound up with was Meatballs, and then pizza with salami, is entirely incidental. K and I also shared a Tuscan Kale salad with shaved fennel, radish and ricotta, and the Squash Blossom pizza; a Cherry Tomato, Zucchini, Burrata and Parmesan number. I left thinking if only there were more high-end, accessibly priced places that could so effortlessly make green stuff look good, the healthier, more balanced diet I’d have, and the happier I’d be about the apparent need to pour pint after pint of IPA down after it.

This being LA, and Venice’s most boutique boulevard, the crowd at Gjelina was young and typically hip but with mature, well-to-do glimpses that continued to speak volumes as to its far-reaching appeal. And we met a vampire there. A charming Frenchman called Sebastien who played one on a TV show, anyway. Far from raving about a blue Niman Ranch, Flat Iron steak he’d just savaged, however, he was more batty about the Butterscotch Pot de Creme with salted caramel. Proof (in the pudding, of all places) that even bloodsuckers can bite down on something besides flesh and still feel the benefits.

Just the best night, this. I heart LA, and this one’s for you, Malibu xxxxx

Piss & Googlies: Nelson – Birmingham, England, 27th/28th August 2011

“Nelson (Cricket) – The name, applied to team or individual scores of 111 or multiples thereof”.

Yes, it’s difficult, isn’t it, once we’re all grows up, to keep dates for what ought to be a regular ‘coming together’ of family? Life gets in the way. Prior engagements, responsibilities…I get it. I don’t have them, but I get it. What you need are some tenuous grounds – grounds too tenuous for anyone to object – to get a little crazy. A healthy period of notice is obviously useful, as is a Bank, or Labor Day Holiday; a crash mat onto which those with dependents can fall in the aftermath, either to have their hair stroked or to lick their wounds, to rest and rehydrate before resigning themselves to a host of pre-arranged, compensatory domestic chores. Foundation for such opportunity can be a little ‘chicken and egg’, of course, and the very reason why the brothers and I celebrating our Centenary (our cumulative 100th birthday) over a hot and sunny weekend next-the-sea a few years back was a masterstroke. It created a precedent. A table around which to conspire. Back in February, at Stow on the Wold’s Eagle & Child, the penny dropped. For the six months between May and November this year, we’d be 111. Hello Nelson, goodbye short-term memory.

The domestic TwentyTwenty finals day at Edgbaston provided the setting for Day1. Try as it might, while rain interrupted the cricket, it couldn’t stop play. An initial and misguided circumnavigation of the ground took in frogs, a chicken deep in conversation with a couple of rabbits, and a barely-released, blinking Beirut hostage with a tongue like a salamander. Six or seven plastic pots of black and amber piss were despatched through the covers before, having sat through two finely balanced semis and one mascot steeplechase, we threw over the final in favour of a change of scene. By now the all male cheerleader troupe fannying about on a nearby podium were starting to sour the taste of an otherwise sensational picnic, (among which, incidentally, the sweet stuffed bell peppers were the tits) and we were beginning to feel quite self-aware about the amount of exposure Sky television’s cameras had given us already.

Getting ourselves hence to a haughty Hotel du Vin we figured, in light of the occasion and the surroundings, that cocktails were in order. Sceptical one of two mojitos mightn’t have arrived sans rum, and mindful Big Bentz was mincing too much around his margarita, we yammed what was left of the laid-on salty snacks and went to Bacchus.

Buried in the vaults of the Burlington Hotel, Bacchus is a Nicholson joint and duly juxtaposes a reasonable beer selection with an atrocious carpet. Always a minor mystery to me why some pub operators will undermine the overall aesthetic of their often passable premises by laying any old shit on the floor. Never really got any further toward figuring out why, either, beyond the assumption garish colours and swirly patterns are low maintenance and disguise sick better than seagrass.

To Jamie’s Italian. First go at one of these and, I must say, it was pretty good. A beautifully appointed, rustic yet modern space serving very good, very keenly priced food. Delivered somewhat nonchalantly. Someone had obviously told our girl she was good at this, anyway, and she had believed them. She read us the day’s Specials in much the same way she might leave her number as part of an answerphone message. Didn’t hear a word. The food was really tasty though, as I say. I had a Buffalo Ricotta Ravioli (£7.25) to start, and a Tuscan Boar Sausage (£11.45) on lentils to follow. The lads called Mushroom Fritti (£3.95), Prawn linguine (£12.50) and a Burger Italiano (£11.25). All perfectly portioned save for the burger, the price of which should have included fries, but, all in, a really decent diffusion concept.

The following day can be catalogued more generally under ‘Misc.- Tear Up’. Lining our stomachs with a predictably sub-standard, over-priced and error-strewn breakfast  at Warwick’s Lazy Cow (we thought we’d give them a second crack of the whip. Doubt they’ll get a third…) by 12.30am we’d sought the more-than relative sanctuary of Stratford’s Church Street Townhouse. This place knows service even better than it knows how to sell you things. Pooh-poohing a more than reasonable offer of Bloody Marys in favour of a string of pints and steel buckets full of brilliantly dirty bar food, we capitalised on the charitable suggestion we leave our tab open for our inevitable return, and decamped to the louche upstairs of some big screen gaff to watch Man Utd rape Arsenal by 8 pots to 2. Bentz’ celebratory shuffle after ‘PARK!’ made it six or seven was an undoubted highpoint.

Trousering a Purity Gold, among other things, in the so-so One Elm, we returned to our open check and live piano at the Townhouse. Piri-Piri prawns, an edge-beckoning, pupil-dilating Muscadet, and a sing-a-long-a ‘Sweet Caroline’ provided the spirited setting for some healthy, inebriated, family-orientated chat. The kind that boys sometimes need beers to broach. A brief, ‘we okay?’ word in each other’s ear before congregating back at the coal face of a carve-up which, even if we do say so ourselves, and in spite of the white threatening temporarily to derail us (well, me), was paced to pleasantly-pissed perfection over its 11hour duration. 

Less a critique of the various venues visited, then, than an endorsement of the importance of weekends like this, spent in this environment. Family is and always will be fundamental to me. To get periodically FUBAR in their company, if that’s your wont – and it is indisputably ours – helps restore balance and banter where day-to-day shit and a circumstantial shortage of regular reco’s might threaten to muddy the waters. We had a fucking great time. None of which scratches the surface of the 5 point, chauffeured pub crawl a break-away faction of us failed to resist come that aforementioned, supposedly arse-ache alleviating Monday. No shame, some of us. No shame. No shame, no gain…

Gone Wood – The Brownswood, Green Lanes, N4

As a retrospective of mine and the brothers’ cumulative 111th birthday tear up last weekend continued to simmer itself into something resembling structure, the Crow and I met for beers at The Brownswood. A large, looming bastard of a building overlooking some bad tempered crossroads and a stone’s throw from one of the moodiest housing estates sinceGilley Law, The Brownswood is the latest from the brains behind Stoke Newington’s Jolly Butchers and Rose & Crown.

Open barely a month, for all the latitude that affords it, The Brownswood hasn’t quite got ‘it’.  The aesthetic approach is right on, the execution not so much. Sure, it needs some wearing in, but for a start I’d have stained those downstairs table tops darker or else chosen different ones. I’d also have laid wooden flooring where the slate tiles that pave the way to the barren beer ‘garden’ lend the air of a farmhouse kitchen extension. And Christ only knows I’m not an interior designer, but perhaps I’d also have painted the ceilings to try to close in a space that, on the ground and first floor, feels hollow. Not at all sure about the ornamental star constellation on an upstairs wall, either…

But that’s not to say it’s an uncomfortable environment. It’s truly cavernous, so to be too critical of their failure to fill it already would be harsh. The bar presentation is smartly uniform. The people working it, while we’re there, are enthusiastic and helpful. And what they call their 1st Floor Lounge actually feels quite established. It benefits from an exposed brick wall, better furniture, nice light fixtures, and an open fireplace, in front of which there’s a long, comfy looking sofa that, for once, doesn’t a) waste space, and b) look like it’s been abandoned there.

If you enjoy the product selection at the Jolly Butchers you’ll feel let down here. Doubtless attributable to the terms of tie, and though you might argue that of the more generic cask and bottled booze out there they’ve chosen reasonably well, it’s still just that. Generic. And, although both the Redemption Pale Ale ( as directional as it got, it quite naturally ran out ) and St Austell Tribute were tip-top, drinking out of a jug makes me feel like an old fucker.

The food we opted for was a relative triumph. To get this many biscuits with cheese is practically unheard of and, I won’t lie, along with them playing Ryan Adams, made the place up a lot of ground. The cheeses themselves weren’t sexy but had teeth and, for £7.95, there were plenty on the board. On another was a dead decent antipasti comprising meaty florets of Parma ham, salami, chorizo, warm bread and olives (£9.95). The very deliberately narrow menu otherwise offers Burgers (which looked pretty good), sausage and mash, Fish and Chips, and a Risotto which the table next to us politely returned in exchange for a pudding on the House.

Glitches like this they’ll probably iron out over time. And at the risk of sounding quite contrary, given its early days and all, so will their garden grow. But you’ll have to go along – and I wouldn’t discourage you- to begin to appreciate what I mean when I say The Brownswood hasn’t quite got ‘it’. It has something. Somethings, even. Biscuits, music, manners. But not ‘it’. Not yet, anyway.

Peace out, the Crow. Love you, boss x

Photos courtesy of our hosts. Except the one of Cheese. I took that.

Bring the lights down – The Barnsbury, N1

It must have been, oh, about five years ago. CrowsFeet, his missus and I had contorted ourselves into a corner of the Charles Lamb and were contemplating food from a tight menu that, tellingly, had sold through on its stand-out dish. The lady had just joined us from work, I think, and it was all a bit hectic. We weren’t feeling it so we left.

Diverting along Liverpool Road, we were thinking Drapers, maybe, but came to The Barnsbury first. They were smashed out and, on enquiring tentatively as whether they had room for three, we were shown to the only available table, a round, squeezed just inside the door. It was about as comfortable a fit as we’d relinquished at the Lamb but, having been made feel very much as though they’d prefer it if we stayed, and despite the warning that food would most likely be a while, we hunkered the hell in. Food was a while. When it did come though, in line with how popular the place appeared, it was really decent. I had a confit duck leg with cassoulet, as I remember, and we had a good night.

Fast forward to last evening and the cut of the Barnsbury’s jib is decidedly different. They’re using the door on the opposite side as the main entrance now, creating a more natural angle from which to channel punters in toward the bar. The other notable difference is that, relatively speaking, there’s no one here. The unwelcoming glare of blinding light from those customised, upturned-glass chandeliers may have something do with that. There’s no attempt here to generate anything approaching an ambience despite, as I say, the thoughtful, quirky fittings. It feels very much as though they’ve just called time, even though it’s still only 10pm. They don’t just carry any old thing in the way of product here either. I mean, it’s not the most cutting-edge concept, but there’s great condition Brew Dog on draft, one or two unpredictable guest ales, stuff a beer snob wouldn’t sniff at by the bottle, and an attractive display of premium, top shelf spirits. They just don’t seem given to selling any of it up or to keeping people there once they have them in. The guys behind the bar would appear capable, but also bored, distracted, and not to give a rat’s arse, particularly, about the quality of customer experience. Weird.

I haven’t looked into it but if I was to venture a guess as to whether the Barnsbury’s undergone a change of administration since last we were there, I’d have to go with ‘yes’. Last night Liverpool Road felt like a village high street that’s recently been by-passed, its pub like a local that’s presided over by someone who’s in it just for giggles and spends most of his or her time on the golf course. A few tweaks and it could be canny. Just now it’s about good enough for a swift one.

Hackney Ding Dong – Duke of Wellington, The Talbot, The Royal Oak

I started writing this thing, as much as anything, because I had too much time on my hands. Too much time and no money which, where opportunities to tear one off were two-a-penny, meant also that it was difficult to maximise on every site visit or put food-led pubs properly through their paces. These days I have a job. Not a particularly serious job, but a job. Hence, although I still have no money, I have increasingly few windows to get out into the field, and even less then to catalogue just how smashed or sick I subsequently get. Where this is pertinent in Hymnal terms is in regard to the assertion in the Ethos page here that boozers can stand up on the strength of a single redeeming feature. While I absolutely maintain that to be true, I’d also have had to be blind, now pastime is at a premium, not to notice how infrequently, from the point of view of venue, product and service – to name but three of the criteria by which one would invariably rate somewhere – a place ticks more than a couple of boxes. All of a sudden I’m concerned not only that the general public are way too tolerant of iffy standards, but that altered perspective has, God forbid, raised my own expectations of how far my resources need go.

If last Saturday’s crawl around Dalston and Hackney proved one thing it’s that it’s miles easier to look cool than it is to look discerning. Imagine Balls Pond Road, if you will, to be a literal pool of test(es) personnel, and you should find yourself a step closer to figuring out how certain pubs in the area succeed, by lackadaisically lollygagging around their theme, in taking the piss out of their punters on a day-to-day basis. Not that the one venue we visited on that specific thoroughfare was necessarily guilty here, but if I hadn’t already known Bethnal Green’s Mason & Taylor sprang from its midst, I’d never have put The Duke of Wellington in the same ball park. They’re two different models, of course, which will go some way to accounting for that, but there wasn’t anything like the pervasive professionalism here as greeted me at its craft beer-orientated off-shoot. And I’ll grant you there’s very often an air, when someone opens somewhere new, of a fresh, more ‘at it’ attitude to appearances, to creating an impression, as well as a determination to do right this time what perhaps they did wrong the last. Still, they shouldn’t need me to tell them their bottled stuff’s going to get warm if they don’t pull the fridge door to.

Given how fucking fashionable this part of town is, too, I’m often surprised its locals haven’t graduated from or, in the spirit of the now, revolted against the whole mismatched furniture, Bloody Mary, comfy sofas, Sunday papers thing. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but one should incorporate these things consciously, not just because one has had a look around and ascertained that’s what everybody does). The Scolt Head, on an apex of residential roads in delightful De Beauvoir Town (as ever, I’m clueless as to where this stops and Dalston starts or whether if you’re in one you’re in the other..) is just an exponent. A tall, tatty building with a sprawling interior, it rather lacks a soul. This being a charge usually levelled at pubs that don’t play music, I’m here to contend pubs that do can be just as culpable. Ones that also televise live sports and allow the noise from each to come together and then dissipate high above confused chatter about precisely what feel, if any, this pub is trying for.  Ones that are too big and have very little sense of self. My pint of the reduxed Truman brewery’s Summer Runner was served in a glass emblazoned with Greene King IPA. Enough said.

The Talbot, on Mortimer Road, with its exposed brick and fairy lights, does its level best to mask what’s a pretty unattractive building in a not terribly appealing spot. Here, leather Chesterfield chairs butt heads with dog-eared, not-quite-design-classics underneath a menu which, though outwardly appealing, I just wouldn’t want want to stick around to eat from. Why? My pint of Landlord was moody and credible alternatives were at a real premium. Which is kind of my beef. Just to look sharp ain’t enough. You’ve got to back it up. Humouring this sort of shit in places that think more (though not for very long) about appearance than good bar product creates a breeding ground for like undesirables. Vote with your Vans.

By the time we’d consumed cut-price pizza at Stingray and landed at The Royal Oak on Columbia Road, I was proper screwing. Packed and shit. Not unlike its sister, Spurstowe, who either got me on a good day or vice versa when I wrote this. Admittedly by this point there was the sense very much we were now drinking for the sake of it. Two or three bottles taken Off Broadway had eradicated the after-taste of ‘dicky’ Tim Taylor but also served to provide context to the unforgivably flat Meantime Pale Ale on cask here. It was awful, on the turn, and with the place awash with laughing painted faces (true), I left feeling like someone might have spiked me with Absinthe.

What did I start by saying? Oh, yeah; I don’t have time for this. Maybe I’m getting old but I need more substance, more genuine thought and less ‘imagination’ than perhaps these operators seem prepared to invest. And so should the kids spilling out on to their pavements, if nothing else because their permissiveness of bad product is just exacerbating the situation. In this part of town, anyway. And maybe that’s it. Maybe they can or will not be converted and we chose poorly when opting to freestyle from a more bankable, pre-determined path.  I’d rather not believe that but, hey, it’s already 2.30pm on Sunday. My Sunday. At least I know where not to go when next the chance arises.

Safe.

Double Euphoria – The Devonshire Arms, Chiswick

If I was good at one thing as a restaurant manager it was at dealing with complaints. Not that we had many. Although if ever we did the resolving of them was, if I may say, very often poetry. Most of all you’ve to listen. Don’t argue. Appear to understand even though you might not agree, and motion to report back or deal personally (and privately, of course) according to if the issue relates to food or service. Be fallible, yes, but not culpable. Apologise once and say it like you mean it, regardless of whether or not you do. Solve the problem then, and only then, take a moment to consider the necessary means of redress. If you deem any appropriate, that is. Measure the vehemence of your customer’s beef with the seriousness of indiscretion. Are they a twat or did you actually screw up? There’s often decent scope here to embarrass an over-egger with a concession so generous, and satisfying for you, it’ll have them scrambling to recall quite what they were getting their knickers in a twist over in the first place. With any luck they’ll not show their face again. Genuine, constructive criticism, I found, was best countered with a small, subtle gesture . Exponents will refute that they’re doing it for discount but you should scratch off their cappuccinos anyway. They’ll depart happy as sand boys, but not before depositing at least their value in tips.

The lady on the table next to us at The Devonshire Arms had a problem. I was trying not to be too distracted by it but I have a radar that’s sensitive to these situations and which tunes in pretty much automatically. Her tone was knowing and horribly condescending. She was way too comfortable with herself not to have done this before. Any sense of that and you can safely assume, I think, not only that the point’s being exaggerated but that you’re dealing with somebody whose approach to eating out is all wrong. With this in mind, the nice, sensitive duty manager gave way more ground than I would have, his polite submissiveness only serving to fan the old girl’s flames. Be wary of people who allude to your perceived profile; no one will be more keenly aware of what that is than you. Anyone that feels a need to state they’re ‘in the trade’, may be roundly, if not rudely, rebuffed. Idiots. The main reason I have to doubt there was too much in what this lady had to say, though, – and her issue seemed to revolve around over-salted potatoes –  is that my food, indeed my evening there, was bloody great.

Instantly, outwardly recognisable as a sister operation to Islington’s Draper’s Arms, the Devonshire’s location is less refined than I’d imagined. It stands among humbler residences than its established sibling, and in close proximity to the A4 which, Lord knows, is not Upper Street. It cuts a dash in its own right mind you. It’s traditional and tastefully done out in dark olive and solid wood. The lighting is low, too low if anything – the range of bar product wasn’t easily discernible once the sun had gone down – but the place feels warm. And those two easy chairs in the front room will be highly coveted once the weather turns and the fires are lit.

The menu is varied and is set to change regularly. To start with we had Red Onion and Goat’s Cheese Tart (£5.50 – light, excellent) and Scallops with Shaved Fennel and Piccalilli (£8.50). Never had Scallops with piccalilli before. Won’t be the last time I do, either. For mains we opted boldly for Sunday’s sharing centrepiece – a whole Roast Chicken, roast potatoes and seasonal veg. At £34 this obviously represented better value for 3 than for 2, but even at £17 a head we, unlike some, had no complaints. There was a ton of meat on this thing, the stuffing came in for special praise from my companion, and it looked fantastic when it landed. See?

Despite not needing anything else, I’d promised myself at least three courses. We decided to split both a cheese – a balance of three with biscuits and homemade chutney, £8 – and a dessert. Chocolate Fondant, Griottine (?) Cherries and vanilla ice-cream was perfect. 

Drinks-wise we mixed grape and grain, naturally, beginning with a beer from Sambrook’s, followed that with a bottle of good value French (Pinot Noir £25), and rounded things off with a carafe of a gutsy Cotes du Rhone (£14.70).

If I was to pick at anything it’d be the menu presentation. My friend Liz is way smarter than I am, and dines out more extensively, but had more questions than I, as hypothetical operator, would want to raise via my wording of certain dishes. She’s American so had no qualms about asking. And, sure, I know what ‘girolles’ and ‘rillettes’ are, but when the offer is as straight-forward, albeit as stylish, as this essentially is, I’m just not sure people here don’t prefer plainer English. Besides that, and the need for greater confidence on the part of the staff in what they’re doing, it was belting. That’ll come though, and quickly. Because what they’re doing is really good.

Liz. Pleasure. Thankyou.

Photos not hashed on one’s iPhone courtesy of The Devonshire.