The Sparrowhawk, Crystal Palace, SE19

The Sparrowhawk official site, contains menu - thesparrowhawkpub.co.uk

At the risk of sounding like a broken record – what is it with Crystal Palace and food orientated pubs? It wasn’t all that long ago that this was a rough and ready Jack Beards pub called the Hollybush; by no means a great pub, but a proper pub nonetheless. Now it has been given the full gastro makeover and presents itself as almost a café style bar rather than somewhere you might go for a few drinks. I say it has had the full gastro treatment, but part of me wonders if it has, as the end result is a plain drab interior with virtually no character or warmth. There are exposed wooden floorboards, plain walls with large windows along two sides and a mix of scrubbed wooden and formica topped tables, plus a few like they’ve come straight from IKEA. The seating is mostly standard chairs for the comfort of the diners, although there was the odd sofa and high stool here and there. The servery is central, with the room running in a C shape around it and a side door leads you out to the garden where there is some additional seating. A new feature to me was the ‘make your own’ Bloody Mary kit on the bar counter, which kind of summed the place up nicely. The pub is both dog and child friendly, which attracted a number of young families (and their pets) for a late lunch during my stay. On the bar, just Sambrooks Wandle on hand pull whilst a Harvey’s Best clip was turned round. The keg range was a little more adventurous and included Aspall’s Suffolk Cyder and Leffe. The bar staff seemed fairly uninterested in serving me and when they did, they seemed to view me as a bit of an inconvenience as I sat at the bar because all the tables were taken up with diners. This is probably the worst of Crystal Palace’s trendy food-led pubs, mainly because it is so completely and utterly bland. There are far better beer pubs in Crystal Palace and there are gastro pubs nearby with a lot more atmosphere and character too.

This pub screams gastro, refurbished and re-focused, it has changed beyond belief from the truly terrible Jack Beards. It is however more restaurant than pub, and the prices reflect this. Two ales on tap, Sambrooks Wandle and Harvey's Best, reasonable condition, but i did feel out of place just drinking, that said the food did look good. Some will love it, for me its not pubby enough.

Ex Jabk Beards, now up for sale, needs a lot of work, Courage Best just about drinkable, barman friendly enough, but apart from me, no one else in on Wed eve at 7.30. This used to be a very busy little pub but sadly successive bad managers have sent it into freefall.