London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
Central London – Borough
The Roebuck, London SE1 4YG
Contemporary pub
50 Great Dover Street, SE1 4YG
T (020) 7357 7324
W http://theroebuck.net
Open 1200-2400 (0100 Fri & Sat; 2300 Sun). Children welcome until 2100
Cask beer 3 (Purity, Sambrook’s), Other beer 6 keg (Meantime and imports), 5 bottles
Food Short but imaginative gastro/pub grub menu, Outdoor tables on small public square
Tue quiz, Thu poetry night, big screen sport in separate room, functions, board games
This big former Truman pub right on the historic highway from the Borough to the Kent Coast has benefitted from a makeover of its already favoured wedge shaped site: the junction of Great Dover Street, Trinity Road and Falmouth Road was converted a couple of years back into a small but pleasant public space open only to walkers and cyclists. The pub, owned by the same small independent pubco that also administers the Montpelier in Peckham, still looks fresh and attractive from an arty but comfortable 2003 reinvention: all cream and maroon with iron pillars, an island bar, a mix of seats, retro lampshades, eccentric pictures and a rear lounge dominated by a portrait of Bambi’s mum (actually a doe and not a buck, and portrayed by Disney as a white tailed deer rather than a roe, but never mind).
The cask beer range has stablised on Purity Mad Goose and Pure Ubu and Sambrook’s Wandle, though may occasionally change. Three Meantime keg taps dispense Helles, Wheat and a changing seasonal, while three quality specialist imported lagers — Budvar dark, Stiegl Goldbräu and Schremser Roggen — add to the range alongside Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada Pale in bottles. The menu has a bigger choice than usual for veggies — celeriac rösti and a three bean stew with polenta and walnut tapenade when I looked — as well as rare breed sausages, burgers, salads and the like. A big upstairs lounge can be booked for private parties, and on Thursdays hosts one of London’s top performance poetry nights, Bang said the gun, billed as “poetry not ponce”. A worthy entry in the outer reaches of London’s beery centre of gravity.
National Rail London Bridge Underground Borough, London Bridge Cycling Links to NCN4, CS5, 7, LCN+ Deptford, Peckham Walking Link to Jubilee Greeway, Thames Path
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