aspen & mersault, Battersea, SW11

Visited 02/07/24 Would describe this as a classy wine bar, specialising in organic and natural wines. It is a pretty big space, high ceilings. Pretty chilled place with a friendly young sommelier who probably was glad to have a paying customer to chat about Eastern European wines with as it was indeed V quiet on my visit. In fact, the only other punter was older than me so can’t corroborate previously witnessed demographic, other than to verify the young and the beautiful certainly weren’t there on my visit. Beers, only bottle, from Stroud Brewery, a lager, Hop Drop a pale ale and Big Cat, a stout. They also had a couple of ciders, Wignac and Ancre Hill, a scrumpy from Monmouth. Venue is better than a 4, but not as a place to go and drink beer! Lingered a bit as didn’t plan any other venues this evening. Left pondering why the lower case name and why I neglected to take a photo of the outside in its current guise as hadn’t had much to drink and trying my best to photo places that don’t have a current photo on the site. Oh dear, will have to return to have some more of the delicious Slovak Pinot Noir at some stage. It’s a hard life.

I arrived the other night to find that this is now a very poncey wine bar with - according to CAMRA - canned beers only; indeed, all outside were drinking waine and were young and beautiful. As I fulfil neither of these criteria, I moved swiftly on.

Official site of aspen & mersault - www.baraspen.co.uk

Official site of aspen & mersault - www.baraspen.co.uk

This has been returned to pub use, following several years as an Indian restaurant. The old Watney, Combe, Reid signage is still in place on the sides of the building. They seem to have made a futile attempt to make it look a bit chic, leaving the exterior painted the grey it was as an Indian restaurant, and adding a bit of minimalist decor on the walls showing silhouettes of stag's heads. But it remains an estate pub so chicness doesn't really work here, because the customers they attract aren't really very elegant. The furnishings are OK, being very basic tables and chairs, and the floor's bare bare-boarded with scruffy light varnished boards. The walls are mainly a light brownish colour, but with the wall at the back, where the pool table's located, being painted a sort of purple colour. I gather from a female chum that all these off-colours have their own names, but I have no idea what they are. The bar counter is possibly the most ugly one that I've ever seen (maybe not, but it's a contender) being sloping outward, looking like it's made of concrete and painted a combination of black and grey. There's no real ale of course, just Guinness and the usual bogstandard lagers. At least one of the locals at the bar thought I had made the wrong choice of lager (a half of Kronenburg 1664), or perhaps he thought I was being a flash git because I could pronounce it (I decided against calling it soixante-quatre here). He thought the Carlsberg was a better bet; perhaps he was right as it was only £2.60 as it was happy hour, and the Foster's was £2.80. Not my idea of happy hour drinks, but everyone to their own I say. I probably won't be making a return visit, although it's still very good to see a pub like this being returned to its original use.