Bar Fusion, SE20

Visited 12/01/26. Visited previously as Graces's on 20/05/24. No cask. Two hand pumps unutilised. Keg offering of Bud Light, Carling, Inch's, Amstel, Asahi, Fosters, Peroni, San Miguel, Camden Pale, Guinness, Doom Bar, Madri, Neck Oil. Bare boarded venue with the bar counter along the rear wall. Regular tables and chairs dotted around the venue with a pool table over to the right-hand side of the venue. Plenty of red brick work including some interestingly designed central columns. There is some outside seating at the front of the venue with picnic style tables, which is up a few steps off the pavement outside.

Facebook page of Bar Fusion - www.facebook.com

Facebook page of Bar Fusion - www.facebook.com

There were four handpumps as I recall, and all either had reversed clips or were unclipped. I had to settle for a pint of keg Goose Island Midway IPA at £4.65. But we were in there for a bite to eat, and it delivered on that score. Fish and chips was £7.25 and the all day breakfast (which looked pretty much the same as the 'spoons version, which is not a bad thing) was £6.75 a pop. There's not a great deal to say about the interior as it remains pretty much unchanged since the previous reviewer's visit. There's now a pool table, and the spiral brick pillars are an interesting feature, which was an erstwhile Charrington's feature. The food seemed to be reasonable value for what we paid, but the absence of even a single real ale is definitely a negative, but maybe in "normal" times that will improve.

Having closed seemingly for good back in 2009, this large pub next to Birkbeck tram stop was rebuilt and reopened in 2014 as a bar and grill under the original name. It's difficult to know how much has actually been retained and how much is newly built, but the pub now has a large, opened out single room interior, which had a bit of a nightclub feel to it when I visited late on a Friday night. Steps lead up from street level past a front terrace with plenty of seating and into a spacious wide room with the servery on the back wall. A modern dark wood bar counter has strip lighting fringing it and there is a traditional bar back which looks a little out of place in the otherwise glitzy surrounds. Plenty of standard tables and chairs fill the laminate floored space opposite the bar, under a large conservatory style roof and patio windows - an unusual frontage for a pub. To the left is a carpeted lounge style area with a brick fireplace housing a traditional stove, again at odds with the pub's general look. The walls here are a shade of burgundy, which nicely contrasts the white used through the rest of the room. A TV screen here had been turned off allowing the world's most disinterested DJ to spin some tunes on his turntables. Over to the right there is limited seating space with a few high tables and stools, but most of the space here is taken up by a pool table, slot machines and arcade games. The pub is now a freehouse and there were three ales on the go, much to my surprise. The options were not that inspiring - Sharp's Doom Bar and Atlantic and Shepherd Neame Spitfire - but it was better than nothing. Sadly my pint of Atlantic was pretty ropey, so maybe I wasn't that lucky after all. Weston's Old Rosie occupied a final hand pump. This is a strange place that is seemingly trying to be a pub, restaurant and nightclub simultaneously, but actually falls short on all three counts. My visit could have been better timed, as the loud music and young, drunk clientele were dispiriting, but I was at least pleased to find the place open again and serving ale (even if the quality needs to be worked on).