Sun in Splendour, Notting Hill, W11

An upmarket and slightly twee pub at the southern end of the Portobello Road. Sadly a victim of the 'clipboard menus on all tables' disease, and with rather too many tables to start with which reveals its restaurant mentality, but on a quiet lunchtime they were glad enough of our custom. Just London Pride on handpump - too cold but otherwise ok - and with a few keg craft also.

Be careful here,during the day this is really a restaurant serving beer and you will be greated at the door and asked if you are dining.Be clear if you are just drinking ,or else there is table service but with a mandatory 10% service charge.The front room is quite small with high tables around the curved frontage,some lower level dining tables and the small bar along the back wall.There is a corridor to the "secret" beer garden,the haunt of drinkers when the interior is dominated by diners. The handpumps were unclipped but there was a decent range of keg beers,some from respected brewers such as Wild Beer. I was in for food and so my half of Beavertown Neck Oil was £3.74 including service,steep.My vegan burger and fries (£16.50 incl service) was however well cooked and tasty and came from a short menu of bar snack tapas dishes and mains around £14.This is the Notting Hill Gate end of Portobello Road and pricing reflcts the area. Can a poor pub experince be saved by great muzak ?Certainly the soundtrack was superb ,but maybe the best time to visit is in the evening ,when a pub quiz is advertised and tourists have gone back to their hotels.

I actually quite liked this pub. It wasn't too busy when I was in here on Wedenesday The two ales on here during my midweek lunchtime visit were Doom Bar and Adnam's Ghost Ship (£4.20 a pint). The menu is absent any £ signs, but otherwise seems quite reasonable, for the area. The standard, home-made, beefburger is £11, but there's a lunchtime/afternoon meal deal that lets you have the burger, or a few other main courses, plus a dessert (which are mostly £6) for £12. There were a number of things on the menu that I would have been happy to eat, but I did have the pork and chorizo burger (£12), which came on a sort of aluminium tray, with the chips in an enamel mug. Par for the course I guess, but enjoyable nonetheless. This single room pub is bare boarded, has a trio of 2-seater tall tables/tall stools agains the far wall, but the majority of seating is now standard tables and chairs. A pillar behind the bar counter is covered with beermats - with only a couple of handpumps in operation (and one of them possibly reserved for their regular beer of Doom Bar) it would take an age to get through the number of beers intimated. There are rugby shirts and flags behind the servery, which I guess might be replaced with Hallow'een tat any time soon. But that's about it as far as decor is concerned. The wallpaper's unusual though, depicting ancient, decrepit even, small windows. The real windows are nicer I think, being latticed and forming a bowed frontage to the pub. lunchtime, and I had no trouble getting a table although later arrivals - including a smattering of tourists - were less fortunate. I've walked past this pub numerous times, and I was pleased with my first foray inside. It's nothing like a destination pub, but it's comfortable enough, the service was friendly and welcoming, my pint of Ghost Ship was in good nick, and my burger was fine. I've been in a lot, lot, worse pubs.

Once inside the unusual curved façade, you find a compact bar filled with a mix of standard and high tables (making it feel crowded when I visited). Hints of gastro-pub decor. Small patio beer garden to rear. Two handpumps on the counter, offering Stonehenge Eye-opener and Windsor & Eton Knight of the Garter (£4.10, and cloudy, but tasted OK).

If you've been browsing around the Portobello Rd market then this is the first or last pub depending upon the direction you approach, for me it was the last. Despite being situated beyond the main market area and at gone 4pm on Saturday the place was still absolutely heaving. A fairly compact curved single room with the bar along the rear and slight returns each end, the layout is not really helped by a drinking shelf running along the front of the bar leaving little room for manoeuvre at busy times like this. Boarded floor as usual, lower brown painted panelling, leaded windows, upper walls papered to resemble distressed stonework, painted patterned paper ceiling. The room is lit by elaborate chandeliers, mostly regular style seating apart from that shelf and with candles and flowers on virtually every surface plus some large potted plants. Somewhat out of kilter with the rest of the interior a rather industrial looking tubular section of shelving is suspended from the ceiling over the bar providing storage for wine glasses. There is an overflow area to the rear in the form of a partially covered "secret" garden, this was chock a block too. I finally ended up perched on a small shelf awkwardly by the main door but it was all there was. There were two handpumps located at the end of the bar, both unusual and more strangely both involving fruit. Itchen Valley Blackcurrant mild and Wadworth's Orange Peel. With some trepidation I went for a half of the Orange Peel, (£2.20) but it is 6%. It was actually a fine beer with lots of depth and the strength comes through, a slight hint of oranges, nothing too much. A side wall of the bar was covered in beer mats, suggesting the range changes all the time. Another pub I found too busy to enjoy properly however the walk I was doing indicated that market day is the best time so that was my priority. I'd visit again in the hope of a seat and to see what unusual ale selection they had on another time.