Westow Tap, Crystal Palace, SE19

Now the Westow Tap and as far as I can tell now owned by the Portobello Brewery. Physically as described below and nothing seems to have changed in that respect in the 5 years since the last review. Have food from pop up kitchens, currently a Japanese offering. The venue here was busy around 7.30pm in anticipation of a weekly quiz that is apparently well attended. Posted a picture of the beer menu where to get a view of what I would imagine is a typical offering. I opted for a pint of the Extra Mile, a session IPA from Bianca Road. Solid venue, but I would choose the Craft & Courage across the road as a smaller and more interesting venue than this one and the Westow House that has a usually decent cask offering. All told SE19 has some pretty decent quaffing options and well worth a visit to the area for a crawl.

Official site of Westow Tap - westowtap.co.uk

Official site of Westow Tap - westowtap.co.uk

It doesn't look too enticing from the frontage but once inside the long extended single room was quite pleasant and much more sane than Faber Fox next door, the four cask offerings were Volden Session Ale and Spring, Roosters Capability Brown and Marble Pint, the Marble beer being in very good condition. Ten keg taps on the bar had a mix of run of the mill stuff as well as some Craft. Quite nice.

Big ,long cosy comfy bar.Lots of Christmas decs.Good beer garden.Three cask beers on Voldon-winter and session ale and Saltaire -white Christmas.No problem with the beers quality in this area.

A second Antic outlet on Westow Hill, with sister pub Westow House just a short distance up the road, this is a smaller, smarter affair which struck me as a nice calm counterpoint to the bustle of their other pub. The pub has a long narrow interior with chunky bare floorboards and a servery down the right-hand side. A porch with some interesting art on display leads through double doors into the single room bar area. Long button backed banquettes follow the left-hand side of the room under bare brick walls and past a disappointingly bricked up fireplace. The banquette serves a row of small uniform tables with low stools in support and the wall has been decorated with typical Antic-style retro mirrors and a large cabinet full of dated looking ceramics and glassware. Lots of bunting hangs from the ceiling around the front door and this is mixed in with a large collection of postcards hung from lengths of string. A couple of tables with uncomfortable looking hard chairs have been squeezed into the space before the bar arrears to the right. The bar has a padded counter front and effective looking back-lit bare brick bar back. Beyond is an open kitchen and an attractive decorative ceiling. Passing through some large drapes, you enter the rear part of the room with large windows to the rear which give you some great views out over London from Crystal Palace’s elevated position. There is some decent seating back here too and was unsurprisingly the most popular spot to bag a table. An easy listening soundtrack played throughout our visit at a level that was still conducive to good conversation. Just two ales on the bar – Volden Session and Wimbledon Common Pale Ale – with the two remaining hand pumps both out of action. The barmaid here was incredibly friendly and drew me a good pint of the Wimbledon Common which went down nicely with the burger I had from what might be best described as a ‘hipster-menu’. I was a little sceptical at the idea of another Antic pub in Crystal Palace, but I thought this place worked really well as a different sort of venue to the sport and live music orientated Westow House. I can imagine repeat visits to this place and feel it’s a strong addition to the local pub scene.

This is one of Antic's newer ventures, established in a shop conversion that was previously a fairly downmarket bar according to the previous reviewer. But it's very different now. It looks to be much less of a work in progress than just about every other Antic pub. The main room at the front has the bar counter on the right, fixed upholsered bench seating on the left with small round stools and relatively good quality tables. There's another room at the back, with more normal furnishings, although I did spot one or two cheap plastic chairs. The walls are exposed brickwork of course, and the decor's fairly minimalist by Antic standards, but various multi-coloured pom poms hanging from the ceiling is an unusual bit of decor. I also saw live music advertised. There were three ales on - Volden Session (their house ale, at £3.80 a pint); Park Brewery Hillcat Pale; and Wimbledon Copper Leaf. That's about average for an Antic pub, but an OK selection nonetheless, although not overly attractive to someone who's gone over to the dark side. There were brunch menus on all the tables on Saturday afternoon. The nearest thing to a breakfast was the "loaded breakfast sandwich" at 7.5 (or £7.50 to you and I) which seemed to be toasted sourdough (or bread to you and I) including bacon, sausage and fried egg. They also had on something called beans on toast - comprising confit tomatoes, srirach ketchup (no bogstandard Heinz?) and spinach. No mention of beans, but I suppose beans on toast would have to include baked beans surely. Included in the bizarre things on the menu was something called "ice cream brioche sandwich" - not sure about that at all. I didn't eat in here. The place was doing a good trade during my mid-afternoon Saturday visit, with several family groups in. I had no problem bagging a table though. This one had little of the quirky character that we've come to expect in Antic pubs, but I thought it was OK in here.