The Brown Dog, Barnes, SW13

The Rose of Denmark as was, dates from the very end of the 19th century, an old Watney’s roundel still affixed to the sign bracket, located in a very hard to find location in the backstreets of Barnes, hysterically described on the pub’s website as being in a fictional area known as ‘Little Chelsea’; what a load of twaddle. The interior is small, with the right-hand side dedicated to dining-only, the left-hand side small, the whole with a bare boarded floor, white walls, ceiling and wainscoting and scrubbed tables. With just a few prints, it’s a bit stark but there was a good atmosphere with many middle-class local customers in, many drinking wine at the time of my Thursday 9.15pm visit; as Strongers says, it’s more like a bistro than pub but not in an unpleasant way. Aside from the prints, the only décor amounted to a few esoteric pump clips hinting at good things, but aside from an unused pump, all that was available was Newbarns Henok’s Mild, very nice and served by a friendly and beautiful barmaid. New to me, it was £3.30 a half but at least justified in part by its 5.3% ABV. This isn’t a bad place – certainly better than the neighbouring Crossing – but it lacks pub atmosphere and the choice of just one cask was a little dispiriting.