House Belgravia, SW1

The Belgravia is found down some steps at the foot of a block of flats. There is some seating out the front which consists of picnic tables and a couple of café tables. Food is served and there are various deals throughout the week. I had a look at the menu and the mains were around the £8 mark which is on a par with the other ‘proper’ pubs of the area. Standard draught is available and the two hand pumps on the bar were drawing Adnams Southwold and Greene King IPA. The pub itself is L shaped with a raised seating (dining) area at the rear that is available for hire. A booking of ten people or more comes with a free finger buffet, which is an offer I’ve not seen anywhere before. There are a couple of plasma screens that were showing England playing cricket via Sky Sports and there was a decent sized crowd showing interest. The barman was friendly enough and my pint of Southwold was well served. I’d have no problem popping back in here again.

This pub is set down a few steps from the main road, leading into a small outside seating area with, unusually as far as I’m concerned, a TV on the wall outside the pub. I thought that it was pretty basic inside, with the usual pubco meal deals advertised on chalkboards on the walls (curry night on Monday, etc, etc), the usual mix of tall tables/stools and standard tables and chairs, plus one very large table (10+ seater) with hard benches reminiscent of school dinners. There were TVs on showing a sports channel, but muted so that we could enjoy the unnecessarily loud pop music. At the back on the right up a couple of steps is a table with a bit of seating – perhaps big enough for a half dozen occupants – labelled the “VIP Area”, which is apparently available for private hire. A bit pretentious I thought. The only ale on was Doom Bar, with another pump not in use. By this time my companion and I were having some difficulty calculating the price per pint from the total price for a pint and a half, but eventually we concluded that it was overly expensive. The Doom Bar was OK, but I still don’t think that this is the sort of pub I would rush back to, especially as it’s in an area with several other much better pubs.