In a classic cheek-by-jowl corner of south London, where the shiny nests of polished Bermondseers nudge up against humbler estates, is this place, a confusing, historic collision of capital pub life.
Here is the exterior. Sweaty chefs not in picture. Thanks to www.classiccitybrew.com for the image.
The exterior suggests a propah cockney sweat lodge, with genteel privacy curtains to hide the shifty boat races of those inside. Matt brown tiling trumpets the name of Harveys, which suggests something else altogether more stolid and calm. So, onwards and inwards, through the door, which looks as it might be the original fitting… Impressive.
The interior is a hurly-burly of cultural touchpoints. There is a decent proportion of dark, scuffed lacquer to suggest solid history. But then, countering a sense of heritage set in aspic, are various crappily written signs on luminous paper stuck here and there, advertising food and drink. It’s a curious mix of yeasty wartime nostalgia and Costcutter 2-for-1 madness.
What is also mad, given everything – its location, its appearance, its be-trackie-bummed Polish barstaff – is the flipping prices. Jesus. This place, of all places in the world, was where I first met a £4 pint of lager. And not any of your Staropramen mush – no, this was a Becks or something. Four quid! In a fusty rabbit hole in Southwark!
Anyway.
The confusion reigned further on taking Sunday lunch upstairs. It was in all aspects a perfect ‘upstairs room’ – a clatter of chairs and tables, random awful paintings of animals on the walls, heat oh god the heat, like no-one had opened the windows in 35 years, and an acoustic that kills a laugh in 0.3 seconds flat, but amplifies silence to unbearable levels. The kind of discomfiting space to render a group of decades-old friends awkward and, almost, polite.
The chef sticks his head round the door – oh dear lord. Soggy, is the only word to describe the combination of thinning, matted grey hair, dishcloth shoulder and tracksuit bottoms hanging horrifically low for a man of his age. His three remaining top teeth give it the upside-down Star Trek sign as he leers at us all. ‘I hope you’re not too hungry, I’ve got orders back to here and I’m baking,’ he crows, a delicious Crispness to his tone. What the huh? This is all kinds of extraordinary.
The ‘menu’ –the names of some animals, written on a piece of scrap paper is thrust onto the table. We study it, at a distance… Hang about, rabbit? Squab pigeon? Duck? This is a bit adventurous. I mean – look at him! Look at it all!
But we stick with the programme – and we are rewarded with delights. A half hour wait presents us with the sight of our poor, overworked chef de camp struggling into the room laden down with huge plates of excellently cooked birds and beasts, with gravies, yorkshires and vegetables of such proportion as to render a handful of England’s greediest fatheads stupefield.
Finished, we stagger downstairs, full of cheer and chicken, past the bar, where the skinheaded Polish staff stare at us as balefully, just as they had done on our arrival. But I swear I can see something in those glares: a hint of warmth; a recognition that we’d done the right thing. We’d allowed the confusion and suspicion to wash over us and we had been rewarded.