Zetland Arms, South Kensington, SW7

4 real ales served from the circular bar. Food served. Upstairs function & dining area.

Heavily average Greene King pub (I think) a stone's throw from South Kensington tube. Tribute, London Pride and GK Suffok Ale (?) on cask and Tribute was in ok condition. Nothing really to raise this pub above the average; it filled up when the football started and lots of people including my mate and I were eating. I recovered a Spanish bloke's phone halfway through the evening when he left it on our table and, somewhat disappointingly, he didn't buy me a pint. South Ken is not an area I know well but there are probably better pubs in the vicinity

The Zetland Arms, South Kensington Situated close to South Kensington Tube Station on a busy main road is The Zetland Arms, an attractive looking largish street corner pub. An information board in one of the doorways tells us that the pub dates back to 1845 and is the oldest building left on the street. In 1880 it was run by Sid Chaplin, the brother of Charles Chaplin. The pub gains its name from the Danish influence of the population in the area at the time. It's a former Greene King pub, but recently became part of the Punch Taverns empire. The pub retains a fine curved mahogany bar and some etched glass has been retained and repositioned on a wall in the large room at the side of the bar, hinting as a certain lost grandeur, but there's an inevitable chain pub feel to the place, as might be expected from a Punch Taverns outlet with a seemingly clear emphasis on feeding the passing hordes of tourists visiting the nearby museums. Inept black shirted foreign bar staff and a transient clientele contributed to what is, all too often unfortunately, a fairly typical London pub experience nowadays. Of particular note was, from memory, my first 2010 sighting of a blackboard with the message urging me to "Book Now for Christmas". There's an upstairs function room. Several relatively unobtrusive TV screens were showing the motor racing. Posters in the gents toilets advertised live football from both La Liga and Serie A, perhaps indicative of the customer base. 3 beers were on - St Austell Tribute, Pride and Young's London Gold. A 4th pump had a TT Landlord pump clip reversed. On my recent Sunday lunchtime visit, my pint of Tribute was served a good inch short, even after the frothy head had subsided and, despite giving the young barmaid ( Spanish, I suspect ) more than ample opportunity to rectify the short measure, I had to specifically request a top up. This elicited a rather suspicious look in response. I told her that the Weights and Measures people might decide to call in sometime, but I don't think she understood where I was coming from. My conversational Spanish isn't what it used to be, so I had to make do with giving her my best sourpuss look.. I've written to Punch Taverns about my experience suggesting that they might want to provide some training pretty pronto - let's see what they say. Ironically, the Tribute - £ 3.32p - tasted really good, although being served short measure always leaves a nasty taste in the mouth as far as I'm concerned. Previous reviews here are not exactly glowing and I'm not putting this one down for a revisit.