Recent roast dinner reviews:
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The Audley Public House, Mayfair
Published 20 October 2025, 7:04 am
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The Candlemaker – SMOK’D, Battersea
Published 13 October 2025, 6:49 am
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The Marksman, Bethnal Green
Published 29 September 2025, 5:33 pm
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The Old Red Cow, Farringdon (2025 Re-visit)
Published 15 September 2025, 6:57 am
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Ruff’s Bistro, Walthamstow
Published 9 September 2025, 7:14 am
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Alice House, West Hampstead
Published 28 August 2025, 5:36 am
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The Old Red Lion, Kennington
Published 19 August 2025, 6:48 am
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The Whippet Inn, Kensal Rise
Published 11 August 2025, 7:06 am
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The Libertine, Bank
Published 29 July 2025, 5:22 pm
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The Duke Of Greenwich, Greenwich
Published 21 July 2025, 7:07 am
It was time to head to the London pub version of a Harrods sale queue, The Audley Public House in Mayfair.
OK, maybe a slight exaggeration but basically at The Audley Public House, it’s a very popular and trendy pub, mixed with some rah rah’s and plenty of tourists – and not everybody respects a non-existent queue.
There’s no queue and no way of booking a table. So you turn up and hang around, waiting for people to finish eating/drinking, loitering with roast dinner intent. Waiting and staring at people with only half a beer left. Waiting 30-40 minutes in our case.
Then someone gets up to leave but before you can pick up your bag, someone new strolls through the entrance and sits on the newly available table. BAM. A bit like Spliff Politics from Human Traffic, if you are not too Gen Z to know what I’m on about.
Humans totally unaware of all the other people milling around, each of us in our own miniature geopolitical crisis, waiting for the something almost as rare as a day of ceasefire that Israel actually ceases fire.
Though obviously there is nothing to worry about in Gaza now, because King Donald has secured eternal peace.
Anyway, I’ve had enough of moaning about dictators.
For now.
Like…I’ve literally had it up to the roof…or perhaps the ceiling anyway.
Elizabeth Wilbraham Probably Cooked A Great Roast Dinner
Which brings me to…ceilings.
Have you ever wondered what the best ceiling is at a pub where I’ve had a roast dinner? No? Perhaps you wonder what lingerie I bought for my imaginary girlfriend on my birthday in Paris earlier this year?
No? Happy to go with best ceilings?
Right, in number 5 we have The Woolpack in Bermondsey.
Clearly back in 2018 I wasn’t aware of my future needs of photographs for Ceiling Of The Century awards, and hence have only half a photo of a renaissance-themed ceiling. Average roast dinner, banging ceiling.
In position 4 we have Clapton Country Club. Yep, I didn’t even consider I’d be this desperate for content in the future back in 2023 and hence you don’t see much ceiling:
We’re talking rustic tram shed vibes with a big disco ball. Really my kind of ceiling. And a very good roast dinner too.
In position 3, we have a new entry – not that I ever had a top 40 countdown previously, mostly because Bruno Brookes wasn’t available.
It’s The Audley Public House.
So we did get a table (I’ll come back to the top 2 best ceilings with a roast dinner when I inevitably get bored of talking about carrots) though my accomplice did have to metaphorically shoot two people who’d again literally just walked through the door and tried to grab it.
Getting a table at The Audley Public House is stressful. It’s a really gorgeous pub, the décor is stunning, the ceiling is a modern art masterpiece, the wallpaper on the way to the toilets is out there but ace, the toilets are lush, the beer choice is…well they have a Steady Rolling Man, but otherwise fairly ordinary.
Elizabeth Hurley Must Love A Roast Dinner?
But, urgh. Getting a table is dog eat dog, and boy are they ready to eat dog in Mayfair.
Oh and when you do get sat down, you’ll find out that roasts are £30+.
Well, I wasn’t giving up my new-found stool, and acceptance into Mayfair life, whilst a besuited chap with a flat cap that was tinkering away on the piano surprisingly pleasantly.
Yes, the sign says “no playing the piano”. Also people should respect the invisible queue for a table, and the IDF should fuck off back into Israel, but hey, this isn’t the world we live in.
Anyway, on the menu was half a chicken at £30.00, pork belly at £30.00 and sirloin of beef at £36.00, plus a sharing lamb thing at £64.00. Just imagine if you were a vegetarian/vegan and had done all the stressful waiting around for a table shiznit…then to find out that even the chips come with beef dripping béarnaise, or at least can do.
I’ve been really craving pork belly but for some reason I went for the beef. I just had a feeling it would be really good here.
Elizabeth Gentry Definitely Ate Roast Dinners, Though Was Imaginary Like My Girlfriend
Our roasts took a good 20-30 minutes to arrive, whilst we curiously watched a group of 4 Chinese tourists share a roast dinner. But then they later shared fish and chips…maybe they also shared a sausage roll, but I didn’t see that.
Starting with the carrot which had been sliced vertically and was effectively just three mouthfuls – sweetly roasted but not much else to say.
Gosh I’m bored already, shall we have the second best ceiling in roast dinner reviewing history? This has to go to The Black Lion in Kilburn – a Grade II listed building with a gloriously ornate ceiling, and actually with a glorious roast dinner too.
Fine. Back to the carrots, for we also had a carrot and swede mashed medley – perhaps there were other vegetables going on but those were the two I picked out. Creamy in terms of texture, but tasting of their vegetable components. Two lots of carrots? Told you I’d get bored.
Cabbage was on the crunchy side, but pleasant enough.
My accomplice wondered what the black parts were in her cauliflower cheese, though we soon discovered they were burnt bits. Yet the cauliflower cheese was cheesy, and quite gluttonously so – if also very mushy with burnt specks.
Queen Elizabeth II Definitely Loved A Roast Dinner And Probably Read This Blog
A whole 4 roast potatoes were supplied, and oh my god these were some of the best roast potatoes of the year. Stop the press – I actually had some roast potatoes that were not only not shit, but were wonderful.
They did actually melt in my mouth, gloriously crispy edges, fluffy inside – this is the gold standard of roast potato. Welcome back, roast potatoes. Welcome back.
I wasn’t so bothered about the Yorkshire pudding, it was a tad on the cold and dry side, though it did have some fluffiness in places.
I couldn’t decide whether to use the photographs with the brightness on or not, so this is with brightness on – the others without.
So maybe the beef looks rarer than it was, though it was on the rare side of medium. Clearly a good quality cut of beef, it was really tender though I’m not sure the flavour was brought through as much as it could have been. And two fairly thin slices for £36.00…Mayfair.
Finally the gravy was a rich jus-like gravy, rather on the oily side and one you could appreciate yet not want too much of. A Mayfair kinda gravy.
The Audley Public House
Phew. That’s one of the trickier places to review from my to-do list completed.
The Audley Public House is a gorgeous pub, with character and a Mayfair type of vibe to it – a more upmarket tourist would certainly find appeal here, though a bang average English bloke like myself (not that there’s really anything too average about someone who’s reviewed 346 roast dinners) can just about fit in too. Well, can fit in once there is a table available – which took us a plenty of patience, perseverance with a pinch of panic.
The roast dinner is good. Some of the best roast potatoes of the year – really gold standard stuff, and everything else was broadly good – maybe only the yorkie needs a bit of work.
That said, apart from the roast potatoes, it isn’t especially stand-out. If you cannot be bothered with the table-waiting drama, then you aren’t especially missing out. Though they do also have a restaurant called Mount St Restaurant upstairs, which you can book – and probably serves the same roast dinner.
My accomplice couldn’t quite bring herself to score it in the 8’s and offered a 7.99, until she went to the gorgeous bathrooms at which point it became a 7.999999.
Likewise I cannot stretch that high either – it’s a very good roast dinner, you will enjoy it, but maybe for £36.00 in a pub I’d just expect a little more flavour in places. My score is a 7.83 out of 10.
Oh you do actually want to know what the number 1 ceiling in roast dinner reviewing history in London is?
Well it goes to The Old Bank Of England, of course. Poor roast dinner, superb ceiling.
Have you got a favourite pub ceiling? Can I have a roast dinner there? Do drop a comment…
I’ll be back next weekend, at another trendy but expensive pub.
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Time to get your eyes rolling, because I went for a SM’OAST at The Candlemaker in Battersea.
Put on your jeggings, I’m about to mansplain a snaccident. Firstly, fuck off with calling a roast dinner a “SM’OAST”.
Quite frankly the most disgraceful portmanteau I’ve seen in my lifetime, and the maximum score that The Candlemaker can now achieve is a 5/10, no matter how gorgeous the smoked meats might be (or might not be – for this is just the start of the review). And, no, I will not chillax. I’m HANGRY.
Well, at least that’s one award sorted for worst portmanteau, though I might also consider a nomination for Nobel Peace Prize now that’s been utterly devalued.
Gosh communism must be really shit if you need to metaphorically suck Donald Trump’s vertically-challenged penis.
On the bright side, the centuries-long dispute between Palestine and Israel is finally over, thanks to Donald Trump. All grievances have been settled, all peoples will live in peace, harmony and freedom forever. Justice will be served via international law, all terrorists will lay down their arms, all settlers will revoke their illegal land claims, and we’ll see Netanyahu in jail…ooooh…before I score a roast dinner more than 9.50 out of 10.
Moderately Great Expectations
You know, it would be quite funny if Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, won the Nobel Peace Prize next year, given that he actually did do some of the ground work on this peace deal, that will probably fall apart before I score a roast dinner more than 8.50 out of 10.
Anyway. A friend of mine give me the heads up about a BBQ meat place doing roast dinners a while back called SMOK’D, at a few different venues, not that he’d been, but thought it looked interesting, and the meats looked rather sexy on Google reviews, so it went on the to-do list with a bit more hope and expectation than average.
Inside The Candlemaker is a fairly old pub, chunks of it painted red, with some purposefully semi-grotty decoration, some old chairs, some uncomfortable seating, some Halloween decorations (already…still 3 weeks to go), plus this old school drinks board which must be a pain to update the prices on several times a day thanks to Joe Biden’s inflation.
I found the place kind of ugly, yet I’m sure others will find it charming. Except the toilets, which did rather stink. Then again, there are some weird people around though they are probably busy being local councillors for Reform UK.
And on the table…
Yes, kitchen roll. It is a BBQ place after all, but it did get me a little worried that I’d be eating a roast dinner with my hands.
The Old Curiosity Roast Dinner Menu
Well you’ve already seen the Sunday, urgh, SM’OAST, urgh, menu. But it certainly appealed.
Pork belly for £22.00, chicken for £22.00, beef rib for £26.00, vegan beef rib for £26.00 (WTF?) and some unknown vegan/vegetarian roast for £20.00, which was a wellington.
I was only ever going to choose the beef rib here.
Our roasts took around 25 minutes to arrive, and my moderately great expectations were dashed.
Urgh, let’s start with the carrots then which I thought might have been boiled but on look from the photograph may actually have been roasted. They were OK. Batons, possibly pre-packaged.
Parsnips were not OK. Again suspiciously baton-like, undercooked, paler than my arse cheeks before I got “BRITIAN TILL I DIE” tattooed on them at the Conservative Party conference last week, and dry inside.
The cabbage was alright (oooh I found a synonym for OK), rather wilted and limp but otherwise it was…OK.
Hard Times In Roast Dinner World
The cauliflower “cheese” was as mushy as the nose cone on my Airbus that attempted to fly from Faro to London last week, until it was violently attacked by a radical leftist stork.
Yeah we landed back at Faro and I had another day of crap airport beers to contend with. Granted…the outcome could have been worse.
Anyway, the cauliflower “cheese” was mushy and seemed to contain no cheese. Maybe it wasn’t even an attempt at cauliflower cheese, as the menu just says “all the trimmings” and the barman didn’t know what it came with. The barman was actually a really sound guy.
Shall I just move onto the potatoes because I’m struggling to finish describing the cauliflower “cheese”? Mushy. Meh.
Guess what?
Yeah they were turgid. There was some evidence of crispy sides, perhaps deep fried, perhaps an air fryer…I doubt roasted, but who knows. They were quite a bit undercooked and a bit dry, but I’ve had worse. That’s almost a compliment.
The Yorkshire pudding was pretty shit. Tough and like cardboard in texture – overcooked to an extent too.
Bleak House, Bleak Roast
There was a little circle of their meatloaf, which I actually quite enjoyed. I know, but I also quite enjoyed the shit red wine in a can on the Wizz Air flight (on the third attempt at getting back to London) even though it’s quite enduringly shit wine.
So don’t take this as too much of a compliment, but it was quite porky with a hint of some chilli or something spicy going on.
Surely I liked the beef rib?
Thankfully, the beef rib was reasonably excellent, despite looking a little coal-like. Lovely, tender meat that fell apart, some gooey fat in between, burnt on the ends to give it more texture but gloriously pink inside.
I have had more stunning beef rib before – the smoky flavour was good, but the sexual nature of this beef rib was more to do with the texture, and a bit less from the taste.
Quite where it was BBQ’d I have no idea, I couldn’t smell BBQ, there was no wafting of BBQ smoke anywhere near my nostrils.
My vegan accomplice didn’t really tell me much about hers, though it was a vegetarian wellington, and I saw it has bits of carrot in – it was the only thing she enjoyed on her plate.
Finally, the gravy was a duffer. It looked the part in terms of consistency, but was quite salty so assumedly was using granules and tasted of little else – we guess it was a vegetarian gravy. And you can stick that up ya SM’ECTRUM.
The Candlemaker
Is this the roast dinner universe paying me back for having too many holidays?
It’s now over 4 months since I’ve been able to score anywhere above an 8. The Candlemaker certainly doesn’t cut it.
The only thing I can really compliment on the plate (and I didn’t like the black bowl-like plate itself) was the beef rib, which had a gorgeous texture, but even that could have been a little less charcoal-ish on the outside, and could have tasted more “SMOK’D”.
My regular accomplice scored it a 5.80, my vegan accomplice a 7.00, and my score is a 5.75 out of 10.
Do I have anything nice to say? Well the barman was cool and had vibe about him, he was very on it with service too, despite being the only person working – then again, it was pretty quiet. Quiet enough to raise my suspicions when I went inside that all may not be too good.
Beer was the usual guff, though they did also have their own make of pale ale, and hazy IPA on – the former was respectable.
Next week’s plan is to go to a pub which is walk in’s only. Which feels like my plan might need a back-up plan. Ahhh, we can dream of better times ahead.
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From Santorini law of doing not a lot every day other than eating and drinking, back into Sadiq Khan’s Shakira law of having to go for a roast dinner on a Sunday, whilst swinging my hips. This week it was the turn of The Marksman in Bethnal Green.
Do you want to see a Gregg’s sausage roll?
Probably not.
Do you want to see a Greek sausage roll?
Also probably not, but bollocks to you.
© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2025
© Copyright – Roast Dinners In London 2025
Fine, it wouldn’t win the best sausage roll of the UK competition, but the pastry was flaky and the sausage actually tasted of sausage instead of greasy gym kit.
You know, I once came back from holiday – this was prior to the days of smartphones, and we joked at the aiport (Ibiza airport to add more context) that the world could have collapsed and we would have had no idea, so I went to find a newspaper in the shop, and the banking system was actually collapsing.
The Escalator Man
Look, folks, I can tell – you weren’t impressed. SAD! It wasn’t just a Greek sausage roll, okay? It was a tremendous Greek sausage pie. The best. People are talking about it. Everyone says so. Everyone that has been to that bakery in Santorini anyway.
VERY UNFAIR. But I know something you’ll love even more than beating up immigrants:
The longest. The greatest. The biglyist. People come from all over the world to ride it — believe me, it’s the best, biggest escalator in the world.
Or how about the deepest escalators. So deep you think you’re going to China. Unless you are going up, in which case you are going to heaven, especially if you have stopped more wars than you’ve read books, like the genius that is me.
Do you want to see one final escalator in action?
Ohhhh actually it’s not in action any more.
And there was me thinking nothing would happen in my week off, but apparently a radical leftist escalator nearly started a war.
On the bright side, at least Trump knows to stand on the right side of the escalator. Feel like I can now forgive him for the roughly 14 million deaths that are estimated to be caused by Trump/Musk cancelling funds for various health programmes in the global south, or whatever we are supposed to call countries with poor people that rich people may or may not have conquered a long time ago now.
Roast dinner?
The Escalated Man
So more often than not, I pick my roast dinner venues by random number generator, from my to-do list, but this time I decided to go to the one on there the longest, The Marksman.
It’s probably been on there since 2018 maybe?
The Marksman is a very food-orientated pub, the first to have been awarded the Michelin pub of the year award, their pies are talked about in hushed tones, and apparently their roast dinners are the bomb too – though I always like to have a sceptical mind when it comes to hyped places, even if the hype in this case happened before we had buses talking about sending £350m a week to the NHS, which has now clearly happened and everyone in the UK is super healthy thanks to the eradication of hospital waiting times that Brexit brought us.
By the way, whatever you do, don’t watch this video of Andrea Jenkyns singing at the Reform UK conference.
Jeez we are in for a lot of pain if Reform UK ever get into parliament.
The Harks Woman
So we were sat upstairs in the dining room, which was perfectly pleasant, busy (if a tad noisy) and fairly minimally decorated – though with some cute ceiling lamps which could be moved around on tracks, which I thought was nifty.
It was one of those places that encourages you to have two courses by hiding the price of one course, two courses being £38.00. For the sake of being able to compare to other places, I asked how much just the roast would be, which was £35.00, or so the waitress thought.
Options on the menu were beef rump…or for an extra £25.00 (between two) the beef wing rib. Believe it or not, I didn’t actually choose the most expensive option.
Roasts took around 20-30 minutes to arrive, it seemed a bit longer than normal, but a totally fine amount of time.
And then by time I dished it up, it looked like this:
The Roast Dinner Man
So starting with the carrots which were very soft, but otherwise pleasantly unremarkable.
Even softer was the puree, which was fluffily soft and a puree I could just about get down with – celeriac puree, quite a creamy feel.
And the cabbage was buttery, if still often quite crunchy in places.
Those Westminster escalators are good though, right? Do you have a favourite escalator? Add a comment at the bottom…once you’ve finished reading all the rest of this enthralling episode of Lord Gravy moans about roast potatoes.
The roast potatoes looked the part, and there were 7 between us to share, yet…yeah here it comes, they were a little chewy and dry. They looked like they had crispy sides, and sometimes there was a crisp, but then there was either a chewy or dry inside. I’ve had far worse, soooooo many times, but you’d also hope for far better at a venue that has a reputation for roast dinners.
That said, the other thing that is often fucked up is the Yorkshire pudding, but The Marksman more or less got this right. Perhaps a little dry to top, but it was freshly cooked, fairly eggy and soft to bottom. The best yorkie for quite a while.
The Larkin Out Man
The other thing you’d expect from The Marksman was the beef to be on point. It wasn’t.
Whilst pleasingly cooked rare, the beef itself was chewy. One slice was really chewy and really hard to cut, despite the performance of replacing our knives with sharper knives pre-roast. That slice was also rather flavoursome and had some smokiness. The other two slices were less chewy but also had less flavour – not helped by being smothered from laying on top of the celeriac puree. It wasn’t a disaster, but it didn’t meet hopes or expectations.
But then the gravy was really good. Quite thin, sure, but it seemed like lots of effort, stock, bones, yadda yadda had gone into it. One of the better gravies of 2025.
I’m not done yet.
Given that dessert was effectively £3 extra, and I’ve only put on 5kg of weight in the last month (might need to stop having holidays), the only correct option was to order dessert.
I had the baked cheesecake which felt really soft and airy, if nowhere near the beauty of the best baked cheesecake of my life – and could have done with a tiny bit more plum to top.
My accomplice had the brown butter and honey tart, which I thought was better than the cheesecake, as the topping was just gloriously oozy, and it was possibly the best thing I’ve had that tasted of honey for a while. But then again, that’s usually just honey-glazed carrots.
The Marksman
Well it was nice to go somewhere with a bit more proper restaurant vibes, even if The Marksman probably wants to be seen as still a proper pub.
The beer choice was actually half-decent too, I had a good pale ale from Deya (or is it DEYA?) which wasn’t Steady Rolling Man, I clocked a cask beer listed too, so maybe they can call themselves a proper pub, at least according to my father’s rules.
House wine was medium bodied and actually really nice too, perhaps more complexity than you’d expect from a house red. Plus the service was really on point, gentle, welcoming, always able to answer questions and nudge us towards dessert.
Not everything on the roast was great – the beef far too chewy, and the roast potatoes were chewy/dry – they both need some work, for my tastes.
Yet everything else was good. The vegetables were all interesting and with quality, especially the cabbage, the yorkie was soft and fresh, the gravy really good too.
Scores on the table for The Marksman were a 7.85 from my regular accomplice, and a 7.54 out of 10 from myself. Despite knowing the roasties and especially the beef really should have been better, we didn’t come away disappointed, and the experience was really enjoyable. It’s on the list to go back to Monday to Saturday. Maybe upgrade to the beef rib if you do go.
And then it was time to head down to the Mikkeller bar to drink £15.00 pints. I’m still on holiday, right? No roast next Sunday as, erm…I’m on holiday again. But maybe there will be a shit Algarve roast for Roast Dinners Around The World?
Either way, I will be back the week after – with a BBQ meat kinda place. Hmmm. Taking my vegan friend. Ummm.
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It was time for a re-visit. Whilst the dis-United Kingdom is revisiting fascism, I decided it was time to revisit The Old Red Cow in Farringdon.
Currently standing at 10th in my league of roasts, at least from places still open and still serving roast dinners – yet it was 8 years since I went, and they have since spent some time closed down and re-opened, I think under new owners.
Safe to say it’s the one nearest the top of my league table that most gives me the creeps. Speaking of which…
Yes, Tommy ten names invited all his absolutely definitely not racist mates along for his annual Tommy’s Cocaine Fund flagathon fundraiser.
But fear not, all the women are now protected.
And don’t forget are kids.
It’s all about protecting are kids. And the cocaine. And the pissing on the street. And the fighting with police. Curious that one of the defences of proscribing a certain other organisation a terrorist group recently is that they attacked a police officer with a sledgehammer. I’m sure there will be equal treatment here. About as sure as I am that the BBC will stop excitedly pushing the anti-immigration types and have some pro-immigration balance to their reporting.
And yes, I know not everyone attending the march was a racist, but everyone speaking at the march was some variant of racist/homophobe/transphobe/misogynist or at best an outright grifter after your money for doing fuck all but spreading hate on social media.
The Really Fucking Old Racist Shit Again
Can’t we just talk about roast dinners?
NO WE FUCKING CANNOT.
We have a world run by Putin, Trump and Xi, two of which have genocides and war crimes to their names, all of which are actively trying to undermine western democracy, liberal values, healthcare and defence.
One of whom has invaded a European nation and is starting to probe others, one who is possibly about to invade/blockade a nation where most of our semiconductors come from, we are on the verge of mass AI-controlled drone warfare, we have the richest man in the world advising that centre folk in the UK need to take up violence, not to mention massive NHS waiting lists, a huge national debt, a housing crisis, phone thefts out of control, a supposed ally that keeps randomly attacking other Middle Eastern countries…but no apparently the biggest problem worth protesting about is some people with a different skin colour getting a boat across the English Channel and claiming asylum.
And now this roast dinner. The 10th best roast dinner in London according to arguably London’s Number 1 expert in roast dinners, Lord Gravy.
Fucking shameful.
Yes, we are talking about roast dinners now.
Racists Get The Fuck Out Of My Blog
You know, I never use to bang on about people banging on about immigration, at least not quite this much. When I first reviewed The Old Red Cow, I talked about anal beads and cocaine purity. Alas, the world has changed.
And when I first reviewed The Old Red Cow, I had sumptuous lamb and top notch gravy, plus a hug from the adorable waitress. Alas, the pub has changed – changed owners to be more precise.
It’s actually not a bad pub in itself, with a selection of session/hazy IPAs for me – and, well I was far too hungover to really notice anything else because I was too angry and drank more than I intended the night before. Not sure what angered me…
It’s a pretty small pub, with seating for maybe 10 or so people downstairs on stools, between 20-30 upstairs on actual tables.
The choices on the menu were sirloin of beef at £22.00, lamb shank at £21.50, half chicken at £20.95, loin of pork at £19.95 and some veggie thing for radical leftists at £16.95.
I had my heart set on pork belly – alas I didn’t have my heart set on pork loin. I had a feeling the beef would be basic, I didn’t want chicken and I had lamb last Sunday.
So I decided to do what Elon Musk desires, and commit woke violence by ordering the mushroom and stilton wellington. Yes, a vegetarian roast dinner. I look forward to being serenaded by armed police when I get back from my next holiday for writing something so offensive.
Oh and I asked for a side of pigs in blankets. They’d run out but should get more by…Christmas…3 months away. Maybe update your menu.
Feeling Like An Old Man
Firstly, I didn’t like the shape of the plate. Probably not the biggest problem in the UK right now. The plate was also suspiciously hot to touch. Hmmm.
Secondly, I didn’t like what was on the plate. Shall we start with the carrots? These were kind of raw looking – perhaps they had been boiled a bit then dried out. Did they taste of anything? Not really.
Broccoli was just broccoli, quite on the crunchy and under-boiled side for my liking.
The cabbage was very fucking ordinary, no butter, no seasoning, no flavour – just assumedly boiled cabbage. Totally bang average. Jeez, what a weekend. At least its raining.
That said, I quite liked the parsnips – they were at least flavoursome, if a bit chewy. But certainly an improvement from what else was on the plate.
And the cauliflower cheese was quite good.
Brexit Roast
I feel like I’ve spent roughly the last 8 years since the first review of The Old Red Cow banging on about only getting 3 roast potatoes in London. Here I had 5. Alas, I only could be arsed to eat 3 of them.
If you told me there were from a packet of Aunt Bessie’s, I’d believe you – though later in the day we did see a large sack of spuds being delivered, so probably they weren’t. They were soft yet a bit undercooked, no evidence of crispy outsides – they didn’t seem like they had seen an oven, but also didn’t taste like they’d been deep fried, so I’m not sure what went on here.
The Yorkshire pudding probably was from a packet, it had that cardboady structure, though even then it had dried out around the top like a quaver style. I didn’t eat much of it. If it was from Aunt Bessie’s, then at least its patriotic.
Looking at the state of the chicken or the beef, I had no regrets in ordering the mushroom and stilton wellington. Then again, looking at my wellington, nobody else had any regrets in not ordering the wellington either.
I had visions of a puff pastry pie, yet it was just a soggy thing, probably out of a freezer. Saying it was out of a freezer is actually probably kinder than saying they cooked it from scratch, as if they did actually cook it from scratch then why was it so soggy? In terms of flavour, I enjoyed it – it had cheese, stilton to be precise. It might actually have been the least-bad option here.
I’ve learnt to order something different when out for dinner with Mama Gravy, as she’ll end up giving some to me, as she duly did with the beef. The beef was way over-cooked, even Mama Gravy found it that way – and I never knew pink beef was a thing until I’d left home. Yet it was the highlight of my meal.
Finally, the gravy was an onion-based gravy, and probably a granule-based gravy – it had that salty aftertaste that granules leave for hours.
The Old Red Cow
Well, I was due a proper shit roast dinner, and after the shit-show of London being taken over by the fascists (sorry, I should say well meaning people that just don’t like people born in a different country being over here) on Saturday, it feels right to have a roast dinner to rant about.
It actually reminded me of the kind of roast dinner that I might endure in patriot-central, Bracknell, when I spent a year living there.
At least I can cross it off my “best” list, and relegate it in the league table. The pub was quite busy, and I suspect I was partly to blame. I felt such shame.
Did I enjoy anything at The Old Red Cow? Well the parsnip had some flavour, the cauliflower cheese was quite good. That’s about it. Oh and they had a good session IPA. It’s still a decent place for a pint.
As for the roast dinner, we had raw-looking carrots, basic veg, no seasoning, soggy wellington, Aunt Bessie’s yorkie, Bisto gravy – what a pile of fash gash.
Scores around the table were a 4.20 from Papa Gravy, who had the chicken and was particularly in distaste of it. A 5.10 and a 5.00 from those eating beef, and I’m scoring it a 4.66 out of 10.
No roast dinner next Sunday as I’m going to a Greek island to claim asylum. If that fails, and I don’t get arrested upon return for being a traitor, then I have a table booked the Sunday after at somewhere more upmarket. Somewhere that could be “the one”, but I suspect is “the over-rated and over-expensive one”.
Ahhhh bring back 2017.
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Hello and welcome to roast dinners in North Korea, featuring Ruff’s Bistro in that well-know suberb of Pyongyang, Walthamstow.
Yes, apparently we have now turned into North Korea, so you’ll understand that I now need to be unrelentless in my fawning over our political leaders.
Perhaps the BBC could teach me how to do this?
And speaking of leaders who feel they deserve fawning over, Liz Truss was invited onto the Master Investor podcast this week, which would be about as useful as having Eating With Tod as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing.
Couldn’t be arsed to listen to her whinging? Yeah, it’s still the treasury orthodoxy to blame, along with the Canadian Prime Minister, the EU, Queen Victoria and the existence of the colour mauve. Whatever happened to putting crazy people in asylums?
Maybe fawn over my roast dinners instead.
Mayyyyyyybbe…
Woof Woof
In better news, it was my regular accomplice’s 40th birthday this weekend.
Alas, we don’t have a lot of luck with her birthday roasts.
The Lord Napier Star from 3 years ago being a memorable case in point, especially when we asked for extra gravy and they said, “we have other customers, you know”.
But we had a bit more confidence for this booking, as we’d been to Ruff’s Bistro before on a Saturday evening, and they serve non-fussy but good quality food.
Tuna steak in a small boat-load of peppercorn sauce, along with a delectable Mille-feuille. See…sometimes I do go to the same place twice.
That Master Investor podcast is sunk, isn’t it? Imagine being the next guest booked on there and considering your own credibility. Might as well get Eating With Tod on to proffer his advice on the economy.
Ruff Ruff
Just two options for the Sunday roast, or at least I thought there was when I was at the restaurant, beef or lamb rump – though I have just clocked that it says “vegetarian option available”, both priced at £24.00. Did I miss that? Oh no.
I asked the waitress what cut of beef it was, to which she advised without any conviction, “regular”. Which was sufficient to confirm to me that I should order the lamb.
Shall we start with the carrot? Actually we cannot, because that isn’t actually a carrot but a vastly overcooked, burnt and inedible parsnip.
Ah, well maybe let’s start with the tube drivers…oh they don’t want to work either.
Well, maybe let’s start with Nigel Farage…oh hang on he’s too busy in America trying to get sanctions put onto North Kor…hang on…no, he’s trying to get sanctions put onto the UK…you know, the country that’s he sooooo patriotic about.
I expect that you’ve already seen this criticism of Nigel Farage by Kier Starmer multiple times on the BBC.
Tough Tough…Parsnip
So, yes the parsnip was ridiculously overcooked and tough, though one person at the table actually received a freshly cooked and soft parsnip, with chives on top. Quite possibly it was cooked in North Korea and shipped over. Oh hang on, we live in North Korea, don’t we (insert eye-rolling emoji).
The Hispi cabbage was pretty good, cooked through enough though tasted something similar to turmeric – yet there was no orangeness anywhere, so I’m not quite sure what I picked up on.
Cauliflower cheese came as standard with the roast dinner, and wasn’t used as an excuse to upsell which is nice. And it was pretty excellent, gooey and creamy – with punchy cheese. The cauliflower itself had a good balance, neither too soft or too crunchy.
I cannot say I was keen on the puree, it just tasted like Dijon mustard, though perhaps there was celeriac in there too. I very enjoy both on their own, but this felt like a condiment more than a component of my meal.
One has to admire the fact that they decided all the vegetables should appear to be coloured in some form of beige despite the existence of cameras and the possibility that this might end up on the internet…one might want to suggest that something green should really start appearing on the plate.
Crispy roast potatoes…happy birthday! They weren’t perfect and quality was variable – Mother Gravy couldn’t even cut through hers. However mine were good – the larger one was notably fluffy inside and not so crispy on the outside, the smaller ones a bit crunchier.
However the Yorkshire pudding was shit. The burnt bits tasted burnt, the non-burnt bits tasted dry and floury. Not sure anyone ate their whole yorkie – I certainly didn’t. And it resembled a cow pat when viewed from above.
Gruff Gruff
Probably the highlight of the meal was the lamb rump.
It was cooked on the rare side of the spectrum, and was tender and juicy too.
Alas, those eating the “regular” cut of beef couldn’t say the same, a word often used to describe it was “chewy”. Yes, the birthday-celebrating accomplice ordered the beef.
SAD.
Finally the gravy, which had a fair consistency to it and was a red wine gravy, though it tasted a little on the tomato side of things. I quite liked it, it worked well and wasn’t too rich – though I always prefer a meat stock gravy.
Ruff’s Bistro
The lack of diversity of colour contrasted with the diversity of quality across the plates, and across the table too.
So the lamb was pretty excellent, the roasties too. Then the parsnip was totally inedible…for most of us, the yorkie was dry/burnt for all of us. And then everything else was broadly respectable.
Those eating the beef generally scored it lower, a 5.50, a 6.00, a 7.10 and an 8.00 out of 10 – so quite a range of feels for just the beef, which I think speaks well of the lack of consistency at Ruff’s Bistro – though maybe a table of 11 was too much for them to comfortably handle.
My two vegan accomplices scored their lamb roast a 6.50 and a 6.70 (I sooooo converted them…maaaayyyyybbbbe), and the non-vegans amongst us scored the lamb as a 7.50, a 7.75, an 8.20 and an 8.50 out of 10 – curiously Mama Gravy had the lowest score, and Papa Gravy the highest.
It is quite a hard one to score, if everything was as bad as the yorkie, it would be the worst roast of the year, and if everything was as great as lamb, it would be…well…one of the best. I think a 7.10 out of 10 just about balances out, but you could easily argue half a point either way.
Not sure this variety of scoring is going to persuade you to try Ruff’s Bistro or put you off! But I would go again, and quite possibly will.
Possibly also worth mentioning is the beer choice, and they had some good NEIPA and session IPA in cans from Gravity Well – so I was well happy. Service was pleasant and friendly, even if she did suggest the cut of beef was “regular”.
No plans for next Sunday yet, but there will be a roast dinner, and it will be near-ish King’s Cross station. I really need some good new roast dinner places near major transport hubs! Hint hint if anyone is reading…does anyone still read this garbage? I read it twice, to check for spelling mistakes – do I count?
Stay happy and remember to praise our dear leader, Nigel.
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This week’s roast dinner comes from Alice House in West Hampstead, chosen solely because it is on the way to Luton Airport.
Yep, I’m on holiday.
Cheers from Tallinn!
I hope you are all working hard back there whilst I’m totally not sunning myself even vaguely in 16’C with occasional downpours.
TL:DR is that you should all be thankful that your friendly AI engineers working for luminaries like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, are working 7 days a week, working 80 hour weeks, so you don’t need to cannot work in the future.
Maybe you are even reading from the Farage future, reminiscing on what the good old days were like when we used to moan about people going on holiday to Benidorm, and having a roast dinner every day.
And when she was thought of as our worst Prime Minister ever. Ahh the good old days.
House of Commons
So as I’ve alluded to, I’m on holiday as I write this, and hence there might be an argument to go straight in for the review.
Especially as Alice House was picked simply and only for being the closest place to a train station on the way to Luton Airport.
It’s actually an alright pub, with a centre bar, some fairly uninteresting beers on draught but at least they had some from indepedent (ish) breweries, and a really nice little area out front to sit in the sunshine.
The young lady serving was friendly, and assured me that I could order, eat and leave within 30 minutes.
On the menu was lamb rump at £25.00, beef rump at £25.00, pork belly (not rump) at £22.50, half a chicken at £23.50 or a baked aubergine thing at £19.00.
I chose the first thing I saw pretty much because I was in a rush.
White House
Our roasts came pretty quickly.
Kind of pointless using that photograph isn’t it?
Right, you’ve seen the roast dinner now so I’ll start with the carrots, which were soft yet seemed a little undercooked too. Roasted, cannot say I noted any flavour other than carrot.
The green beans were rather crunchy. Yeah that’s all you are getting in the way of a description.
Finally for the vegetables, the hispi cabbage – which normally I love, however again it was just too crunchy here to get the best out of it, nicely chargrilled which gave it a tiny bit of smokiness, but otherwise…hmmm.
House Of Saud
Just two roast potatoes though they were quite large, and had seen some seasoning.
Some crispy sides, and quite soft on the inside – but the quality of potato wasn’t especially good (can be tricky this time of year) and they were quite dry inside. Decent effort, but a fair way from what we need.
The Yorkshire pudding was quite freshly cooked, if it still had some evidence of heatlampitis (and certainly would later in the day). Alas, it did some across as rather greasy in texture.
The lamb was fairly well cooked, more so than I’d prefer. It was still quite pleasant to eat, though a long way from anything that would wow me, and writing this 3 days after with minimal notes, it definitely hasn’t stuck in the memory.
Finally the gravy was a bit yacky. Decent consistency – this feels like a battle we are winning in London right now, but a rather oily taste, so it wasn’t that enjoyable.
Alice House
Oh well.
There isn’t really anything to write home about, hence why I struggled for motivation to even start this post, nor is there enough to hate for me to go all out on a rant, which is equally disappointing.
It was all just kind of like yeah whatever.
My accomplice had the vegan roast, and I have no idea what she thought of it despite the fact I’ve spent 3 days on holiday with her so far.
I think she enjoyed it more than I did. Update – apparently it scores 9 out of 10. Didn’t see thay one coming.
So the veg was all more or less alright, the roast potatoes similar, the lamb a bit overcooked and the yorkie/gravy a bit oily and yacky. Can you see why I wasn’t so motivated to write this despite it pissing down with rain in Tallinn?
It’s not bad enough to score it that low, so my score is around a 6.30 out of 10.
I arrive back into Heathrow at 1pm on the coming Sunday…are you thinking what I’m thinking? Though quite possibly I’ll be fed up of eating out by then. Will I want another bang average roast dinner?
Anyway, stop reading this shit and get back to work.
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Hello boys! Lord Gravy reporting for duty, this time at The Old Red Lion in Kennington.
Maybe don’t tell Ofcom about that poster, otherwise they’ll be forcing me to add age verification or fining me 5% of Roast Dinner in London’s revenue, which is 5% of fuck all but hey that’ll teach the internet to stop being dangerous to children. SAVE ARE KIDS.
Unless you want to be my first paid subscriber on Substack?
Speaking of dangers to children.
Obviously I changed the HTML myself, but wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in a world where sexual abusers and war criminals didn’t get to strut the world stage, and actually got called out by our media. And heck, maybe went to jail for their crimes.
I mean, these are both proven facts, I haven’t even had to go down the Epstein conspiracy route, though you can question why we’ve gone from “going to sanction the hell out of Putin” to “Zelensky needs to make a deal”, and what exactly was said to Agent Krasnov in the limo.
It stinks, doesn’t it?
https://embed.bsky.app/static/embed.jsWhew! Putin would like Trump to pay attention to this matter!
— Toks Nilhaw(@toksnilhaw.bsky.social) 2025-08-17T12:11:17.065Z
Get The Fuck Out Of Ukraine
Meanwhile, I continue my struggle to highlight the inequality of roast potatoes in London, and the unfairness of waiting 6 weeks for a table at Blacklock.
This week I headed to a ChatGPT recommendation, The OId Red Lion which is a gloriously aged pub on Kennington Park Road.
Yeah I know it could be hallucinating making shit up, but the others on the list were all pretty good though I’d been to them, and the gravy looked thick on Google Maps, so why not.
They actually had a fairly interesting beer choice, with a session IPA from Supercute, a pineapple IPA from…don’t remember, and also a couple more pale ales. Plus there was a garden out the back, not excessively in the sunshine (alas for me), and inside was like a proper old pub, even with those “mind your head” signs as you travel between both bars, for back in the 1800’s when only those under 130cm were allowed in pubs.
Roast dinners were cheap as well, though this isn’t always a good sign.
Options were rosemary and lemon half chicken at £18.50, rump of beef at £19.75, pork loin at £18.50 or a butternut squash, sweet potato and spinach wellington at £15.50.
Yep, actually under £20.00. Up yours, Biden. I went for the chicken at £18.50, on advice from the waiter.
This may or may not have been the waiter. Memory is fucked.
Get The Fuck Out Of Gaza
Our roasts took around 15 or so minutes to arrive – my glass of wine longer, though it tasted like it was from Tesco Express and that’s further away than the kitchen is, I guess.
Yeah there’s some suspiciously grey stuff going on, but we’ll start with the carrots which is exactly how it goes around here.
So the carrots were pleasant, soft and roasted – not much else I can say.
The greens came in the form of cabbage and leeks, but were a little crunchy and undercooked, especially the leeks.
Then we should tackle the grey sludge. You may be expecting this to be stuffing, as were we, but it tasted closer to parsnip, but with sage and in sludge form.
Oh god this is hard work. Shall we have a break and maybe watch an inspiring conversation between Bonnie Blue and Ibiza Final Boss?
Please tell me he’s got an alt coin I can invest in.
Get The Fuck Out Of Georgia
Roast potatoes?
Well they weren’t as bad as last week’s, but they were somewhat on the stale side of the spectrum. There was a bit of thyme so a fraction of a point for that, and they were quite soft. Yeah…whatever.
But then the weirdly grey, verging on green yorkie. What was that about?
It was kind of structured like an Aunt Bessie but I do think more likely it was cooked from scractch. The bottom was actually quite soft, if not soggy so actually worked quite nicely with the chicken…but why the grey? Oh, and it was notably cold.
The chicken itself was actually good, the breast plump and moist, no dryness going on – and the leg part was juicy too. Thank you for paying attention to this matter.
Along with advertised flavour of rosemary and lemon being detactable, which isn’t always the case, this was actually enjoyable.
My accomplice had the beef, and said it was OK. Not chewy but a bit dry. The chicken was easily the better choice.
Well, you’ve made it to roast dinner final boss, the gravy and this wasn’t at all boss – despite being thick. It was Bisto. Or some other granules, it left that yacky salty taste to my tongue for hours. But at least it was thick gravy.
The Old Red Lion
So a bit of a mixed bag from The Old Red Lion, and I’ll stick to using AI to do my software engineering job for me, instead of choosing where to eat. Sorry, I mean augmenting my abilities as a software engineer. My boss does read this.
Some bits were good. Well, the chicken was really good – and I appreciate having a choice of beers.
The gravy was a bit yacky due to the saltiness and assumed granules, the roasties a bit stale, the yorkie kind of grey and what was that sludge about?
As one of my accomplices said, it was “functional”, though I think some of the functions were a bit lacking. There’s quite a bit on my loathing list, yet I didn’t feel like I loathed it as a whole as much as last week’s, for example.
Scores from my accomplices were a 7.00 from my fellow chicken-eater, and a 6.40 from my regular accomplice eating the beef.
My score is a lowly 6.28 out of 10. Good pub though, and definitely worth popping in for a beer or three.
Next Sunday I have a flight in the afternoon, but I reckon I’ll have time for a roast dinner somewhere first…hopefully!
Well at least there is some justice in this world.
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Can I get through a whole review of The Whippet Inn in Kensal Rise, without making a joke about whipping your willy out?
First, let’s hear from our sponsors this week (do unmute if you can):
Born, born to eat roast dinners.
Born to eat roast dinners.
I used to think I contributed sufficiently to keep the original spirit of the internet alive, though granted I never contributed to Rate My Poo.
But now, I feel totally overshadowed by a man in sunglasses feeding a pig.
Whip it out
So it was to Kensal Rise this week, and The Whippet Inn in particular – added to the to-do list due to something I read on Threads (follow me, hint hint because fuck Elon Musk) a few months ago, and it looked like it stacked up from reading the reviews.
First thing to note – crap beer choice. Brixton, Neck Oil – I was kind of surprised that the bartender was offering me the opportunity to taste them like I was in a craft beer place and had never seen Neck Oil before.
Yeah, I had that kind of look.
On the flip side, they had a little sun-trap of a garden out back, plus reasonable levels of air conditioning inside for once we’d coped with our 30 minutes of sunshine.
Other than these notes it was a pretty ordinary, quite large pub – also with a terrace out the front which I imagine is great for people watching, perhaps very much so on carnival weekend.
On the roast menu was sirloin of beef at £26.00, pork belly at £21.00, chicken at £21.00, some vegan thing at £18.00 and also a trio of meats at £27.50. Also some sharing lamb thing but gosh I cannot be bothered with them at the best of times, let alone on a hot, hungover day.
It was several years since I’ve had a vegan roast dinner, and several weeks since I’d had pork belly – so I went with the pork belly.
Whip it around
The roast took a good 15-20 minutes to arrive after ordering.
Although it was pointed out to me that I started with the cabbage yesterday, I shall start by writing about the carrot which was long, a tad overly-roasted as the tip was a bit burnt, but otherwise pretty pleasant.
The cabbage was good, savoy cabbage, perhaps a little on the soggy side.
Also the mashed swede was pretty decent, a little buttery though I don’t really have much else to add…maybe some seasoning would have helped though.
We also had an exceptionally long parsnip (can we blame the weather?) which had exceptional flavour – but was quite burnt and rather chewy.
Jump Around
Anyway, this is fucking boring isn’t it?
Let’s speak to our AI overlords to try to eradicate the evil of peas.
You actually do want to know how shit the roast potatoes were, don’t you?
They looked good – they even had some pepper and thyme on.
But in reality, they were shite. Like, they were shite last Sunday when they were first roasted, and were even shiter this Sunday once they had been re-roasted.
Sometimes I think going early for a roast dinner is an advantage, but those eating roasts after us looked to have roast potatoes cooked the same day. Ours had clearly been cooked multiple times, were exceptionally crispy and managed to taste stale too.
Turd.
Jump up and wave your willy around
Things didn’t get much better with the Yorkshire pudding which had been under a heat lamp and was quite dried out – though it was edible, if a bit on the greasy side.
So, for the pork…hang on…
BORN…
BORN TO EAT ROAST DINNERS.
BORN TO EAT ROAST DINNERS.
Yes I watched every video on Friday evening after a work social, which was after I managed to persuade fellow engineers to make a roast dinner game in Godot, where it would be game over if your plate touch the peas. Oh and what was the pork belly like?
Well…crispy. It was over-cooked, the crackling was very crispy, the bottom couple of milimetres were kind of grey kind they’d been sat around vaping ketamine whilst watching Tik Tok videos for even longer than I – yet I still quite enjoyed it.
And finally, the gravy was actually really good. Quite a decent level of consistency, quite a meat-stock type and kind of rescued a roast dinner somewhat.
By the way, I’ve bought the domain “stopthesmallboats.co.uk”. Can you guess what I’m going to do with it? Clue – it won’t be anything to do with boats on the English Channel.
The Whippet Inn
Ahhhh, you may breathe a sigh of relief, you’ve made it to the end of this nonsense.
Well, I could mention the other meats. This is the photo of the beef that we saw them take for Instagrim:
And, this is what one accomplice received:
Apparently some of the beef was nice, but some of it was chewy. Two accomplices also had the trio, and the quote was “basic fucking chicken”.
Yep, The Whippet Inn got some things badly wrong – notably the horrendous roast potatoes that had been cooked weeks ago, and the dried-out yorkie. Yet the veg was mostly decent enough, and the gravy was by some way the best thing on the plate, which kind of resuced it. Kind of.
Worth also mentioning the Malbec which was surprisingly good for a pub with such average and uninspiring beer, plus the service was pleasant enough.
Scores around the table were a 6.20 for my beef-eating accomplice, a 6.00 and a 6.62 for the two trios, and my score is a fairly low 6.09 out of 10. Were it not for some pretty ace gravy – it would have been in the lower 5’s.
I’ll be back next week – there’s 3 possible plans, it all depends on other people.
There’s only one way to finish this week.
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Sunday arrived and it was time to go honour that famous 90’s indie band, at The Libertine in Bank.
Let’s start in the toilets, shall we? It’s what Noel would want.
Have you ever seen such gorgeous wallpaper in a restaurant toilet?
I actually had to start in the toilets, as I’d read on their website that they had a dress code, including “no shorts”, so it being summer I wore jeans…but had shorts in my bag.
And it was quickly pointed out to me that other customers were wearing shorts, so I was taking my jeans off before I even had a drink…before England had even scored a penalty.
Just be thankful that the Online Safety Bill means that I cannot show you my willy.
Granted it could also mean the end of the internet as we know it, with all sites with any user content being illegal, so enjoy my reviews, and the whole internet whilst you can. I can seek forgiveness later, right?
She shall not be forgiven though.
What Became of the Leftover Spuds
Let’s stay on the subject of toilet, as London’s favourite class warrior is back with Your Party.
My Party?
You really want to know what my idea of a party would be?
So if I sign up I could influence the direction of Corbyn and Sultana’s new party?
Like, they’d be open to having a minimum of 4 roast potatoes on a plate in their manifesto, if I signed up? And maybe I could insist on a photograph of Margaret Thatcher in every pub toilet? And in exchange I’ll agree to nationalisation of…erm…Wetherspoons.
Deal?
Your Party…like…really, it could be My Party?
Two Thatcher’s?
I am sooooo getting reported to Ofcom.
The Man Who Would Be Lord Gravy
From the toilets to the vaults.
I didn’t photograph inside, but you can check various photographs on the design studio’s website.
The Libertine has been created within the vaults of The Royal Exchange, apparently on the same site as the first royal alcohol license in Britain was granted.
In one room, there was a super-long bar, though it was totally empty when I arrived (perhaps why they weren’t too bothered about people wearing shorts). In the other room was a restaurant, somewhat busier, but hardly that busy.
Lots of exposed brickwork from the vaults themselves, all high quality furnishings, a chequerboard floor near the bar and some striking art scattered on the walls. It definitely has “take mum and dad to” vibes.
The Libertine was actually a recommendation from Perplexity AI…I wonder how long it will be before Corbyn suggests nationalising AI? “Free AI for everyone”. Oh, it’s already free (maybe let’s forget the cost of electricity, water, data and some of our jobs).
I checked Google Maps as to the veracity of this AI suggestion, all the other suggestions were on point but I’d never heard of The Libertine, never seen it on a listicle, nobody had recommended it to me…7.5 years I’ve been doing this blog for and I had never heard of The Libertine.
And it seemed like it had thick gravy, hence it went on the list.
Time for Roasts
Though a good roast needs more than thick gravy.
Options on the menu were sirloin of beef at £26.00, chicken supreme at £24.00 and butternut squash wellington at £23.00.
I’d had both chicken and beef the week before when I was forced to have two meats, so I didn’t go for the vegetarian, and opted for the chicken supreme. Actually the vegetarian sounds quite good now I think about it…I was clearly far too consumed in thought about getting my legs out.
And maybe having a beer. Seeing as I’ve mentioned it, the beer choice wasn’t exactly amazing, but there was a choice – some of the usual lagers, along with Leffe and Camden Hazy – which were my two unconvincing but acceptable choices. Thankfully I disdained the idea of a large glass of red wine, given that we later discovered it was £19.50 a glass when paying up.
Or paying…oops. Always check the wine price before ordering, in central London.
Oh and I was advised that both the expresso martini, and Bloody Mary, were of outstanding quality.
Starting with the carrots, which were a medley of orange and yellow carrots – they were quite crunchy and a little too much for my preferences, but you cannot say that they weren’t good carrots. Maybe there was a hint of honey, but a hint at most.
The kale was really nice, rather peppery in flavour and had a bit of a glorious, buttery texture.
Roasties When the Oven Goes Off
None of us rated the parsnip puree which was just a bit weird. Why puree parsnip?
Mixed thoughts on the roast potatoes – they were soft throughout with absolutely zero crispiness. Yet they had been roasted in duck fat, and tasted quite luxurious.
And just 5 between two of us. Maybe I do need to join Your Party.
More mixed feelings on the Yorkshire pudding – the top was crispy and kind of dried out, though in the grand scheme of London not too much. Yet the bottom half was quite fluffy and enjoyable.
There wasn’t much chicken – just a breast, though I guess that does meet part of the definition of “chicken supreme”, even if the first wing wasn’t apparent.
The meat itself was moist, with a lemon flavour – and seemingly chargrilled on top. Quite liked it, didn’t love it.
Finally, the gravy was as I expected – gloriously thick. Described as a red wine gravy, but actually more meat stock in taste – though it was subtle enough that you couldn’t taste it unless you ate it on it’s own.
And that, dear London, is a proper gravy boat. Oooooh maybe another idea for Your Party? A law on the minimum size of gravy boat.
The Libertine
Speaking of doing things properly, The Libertine also provided proper, solid, good quality cutlery. I mean, how many times do you get offered naff cutlery in pub or restaurant?
We did also have cauliflower cheese which was excellent, featuring both cheddar and brie – you could definitely taste the cheese. Plus pigs in blankets which were decent…but unnecessary.
You can probably tell that we rated this place fairly highly, but my accomplices rated it notably higher than I did.
My regular accomplice scored hers an 8.80 out of 10 – the beef was apparently melt in your mouth, and did look the better choice. My two other accomplices handed out 8.40 and 8.50 scores.
Why is mine a bit lower? Because nothing really wowed me. I enjoyed everything on the plate, maybe bar the parsnip puree, but nothing was like, “OMG best roasties ever” kind of vibe. The gravy was probably my favourite part but even for that I was only mildly effusive.
That said, it’s still a fairly high score from me – a 7.89 out of 10. It’s an above-average roast dinner, pricing is competitive for central London, the venue is gorgeous, cutlery is proper, service was of the glide along style – at least our waiter was. There was a lot to like.
And then it was off to The Chequers to watch the Lionesses win yet another tournament…ENGLAND! And to have…
Nah, only joking, though ordering another roast dinner did cross my mind.
I won’t be back next Sunday as I’m in Hull. But I will be back the Sunday after.
Yes, Lady Thatcher could walk on water. And so could some of these supposedly “hot Spanish women” that look a bit more Australian to me, but hey. Blame Elon.
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Back to writing my own history and this week I was in Greenwich, at The Duke Of Greenwich.
Well I think we are the point where I can moan about the Labour government without a lynch mob turning up.
Higher inflation, higher taxes on business, higher unemployment, higher benefits, higher spending, higher debt. Ahhhh the Labour Party is definitely in charge.
But there is a cure:
Yep, we can cure our ills by making vegetables sexy again.
You know what this calls for…
Dear Artificial Intelligence,
Hmmm maybe not.
Unless…unless there is finally a use case for Elon Musk?
Ah yeah, ICE are only going after Latinos in America right now.
The Duke Of Greenwich Is Mean
Speaking of sexy, I recently went on my first date since we officially left the EU, and I managed not to drink 5 pints or talk about Brexit for an hour.
Brexit was mentioned, of course.
Even more of course, I was stuck on a train outside of Croydon for 50 minutes on my way to my first date since Trump won his 11th election and China didn’t accidently release a virus from a lab. OF COURSE I WAS LATE DUE TO TRAINS.
Anyway. Roast dinner. Who gives a stuff about the adventures of Lord Gravy. By the way, I have started a newsletter and this sentence is probably the only time I’m going to promote it because mostly I cannot be arsed to promote this blog, I just like writing shit and don’t care if anyone reads it, in much the same way that I don’t care about dating, I just like swiping and having that vague hope that maybe…nah.
I do like beer though.
Mean Time Beer Is Crap. Is It Still A Thing?
As a pub, The Duke Of Greenwich ticked a lot of my boxes. Most of them, in fact – independently owned with a very good list of craft beers for sale from (I think only) London breweries.
Staff were really welcoming and edgily rather attractive, it was a modern-looking pub, had a good-sized garden. With the right group, this is proper Sunday Funday vibes.
Yet…there was a Sunday roast problem.
Granted there are worse problems in the world like new potatoes or Benjamin Netanyahu, but if I wanted more than one meat, I’d go to a Toby Carvery.
Yet The Duke Of Wellington was allowing me to either have two meats or none. Why?
I decided that I was probably being too woke and therefore I should demand every single type of meat possible. Plus I don’t particularly want to be awkward – the chef and/or management have decided this was their vibe, so be it. Who am I to demand they meat my criteria of just one meet on a Sunday roast.
It was even enough to make me consider the vegetarian – some squash and pearl barley thing at £20.00 (I think). But yeah, I just succumbed to the BBQ bullying of having every meat possible, which was beef brisket and chicken, at £27.00.
I’ll Show You A Mean Time
It was one of those sharing platter shebangs, so blame me for the presentation on the plate.
Actually you already know that it was a sharing platter as I’ve moaned about that a few sentences back.
So starting with the carrots which were mostly of the orange variety, though with a couple of yellow ones, these were really nice, stripped into batons with fennel seeds – and I do love a bit of fennel.
The cabbage I wasn’t so keen on. It had been on the BBQ which should work for Hispi cabbage, yet it just looked overly wilted and soggy. On the flipside, it tasted pretty smoky and was still fun to eat.
What’s more important, looks or content? Well, my experience of dating apps would suggest looks. And let’s face it, if anyone is reading this dirge, you aren’t judging this on taste either.
Mean Time, Green Time, Fuck Off Elon Musk Time
My accomplice decided to take advantage of the offer of unlimited sides, and had about 15 roast potatoes. Maybe it was 14, maybe it was 16. I did manage a fourth, but more out of boredom.
Yes, it is that time of year where good roasting potatoes are harder to find (though somehow I can still order them on Ocado), these were a bit chewy and felt more like they’d been deep fried – at least tasted that way.
The Yorkshire pudding was a bit burnt, my accomplice’s even more so, and of a more tearable texture. Whilst I’ve had worse, this was below par.
The beef brisket was as superb as I had hoped. Really smokey, properly melt in your mouth with some nice charred ends. I’d had a stunning bit of beef brisket at The Larkshall in Chingford the other week, and this is a close second. If only there was more of it. If only I didn’t also had to have another meat.
Chicken doesn’t work anywhere near as well on a BBQ as beef brisket does, but this doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. However (a however to my however), it was a little undercooked – closer to the bone I didn’t quite dare to eat all of it. The smokiness was excellent, the skin full of flavour and it seemed like there was some kind of rub on it, though I couldn’t work what it was exactly.
Finally, the gravy, of which I didn’t really know what to make of it. It was flavoursome, a bone marrow gravy and quite punchy – though was also quite on the watery side. Also I think the smokiness of the meats (which I loved) also overshadowed it.
Am I allowed to be neutral on the gravy?
The Duke Of Greenwich
Yes I would have enjoyed it more with just one meat. Specifically the beef brisket.
So it was a mixed roast dinner, I totally loved the sexy as fuck beef brisket, and delighted that given the government have said that vegetables need to be more appealing that the beef brisket was the sexiest thing on my plate. However the fennel carrots were pretty ace too.
The chicken was a bit undercooked, the yorkie a bit burnt and the roast potatoes a bit chewy, but nothing was that bad overall.
Oh yeah, so it was lovely to meet me but there was no spark. But also…she regularly goes to her local pub on a Sunday, yet had never had their Sunday roast, so there might have been a problem there.
Anyway, I’ve now discovered the delights of Chatubate.
Apparently it’s a website where you can watch occasionally scantilly clothed young women picking their nails.
Or typing on a keyboard.
Well, it’s not like London is overburdened with hot Spanish women since Brexit.
Oh and a score? Well she’s pretty hot, has beautiful…oh the roast. Yeah, erm, my accomplice scored his a 7.95 out of 10.
And my score is a 7.40 out of 10. It’s the best roast dinner I’ve had in Greenwich, though only the 3rd one I’ve had in Greenwich. And I do stress how much I liked the pub itself – if I lived in the area I’d love to have The Duke Of Greenwich as my local.
I’ll be back next week and we’re going to a recommendation from AI. That is, if I have any money left after the next 7 days of staring at women on Chaturbate, hmmm hot Colombian women typing on a keyboard.
I’m going back to watching a hot Latino babe in her lingerie drink a cup of tea.
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