The Cuckfield, E11

The Cuckfield is one of those old traditional pubs (a mid 19th Century Coaching House) that had presumably seen better days before being put through the trendy refurb mincer. Fortunately, the results are quite sympathetic, a mix of contemporary and traditional that doesn’t lean too far in a pretentious direction. The interior is quite a rambling affair with enough of its old character still intact to win over traditionalists but modern and trendy enough to attract the better end of the market. Some of the pub has been slightly extended into a conservatory type add on and one section is slightly raised. The mix of seating doesn’t look out of place and the chandeliers give it a shred of elegance. At the rear is what looks like an old function room.with an interesting roof and a quite bizarre lighting set up. A small aquarium also stands on the corner. There is certainly enough variety for most people to feel quite comfortable in the surroundings. There is an excellent range of top end draught speciality beers, wheat beers and fruit beers as well as 4 handpumps with Deuchars, Doom Bar, London Pride and Weestron’s Scrumpy on my visit. The pricing was a bit strange with the relatively weak Deuchars clocked up at £3.10 whilst the stronger Pride was £2.95. The draught beers were quite reasonable at around £3.40 / £3.50 a pint which is on par for such products. I didn’t eat but the menu looked quite reasonable with main courses at around £7/8. I didn’t note any TV’s but there was a decent selection of music being played and there are various theme nights (I noted Quiz Tuesdays & Wine Club Thursdays). There aren’t too many pubs around this part of London and whilst I wouldn’t make it an extended session, I can envisage finding it a useful stop in the future as a change to the ‘Spoons down the road.