Stein's, Kingston Riverside, Kingston Upon Thames

Official site of Stein's - www.stein-s.com

Official site of Stein's - www.stein-s.com

This place advertises itself as a “Restaurant – Bar – Biergarten”. This gives one a strong clue to the German theme here. I went for a pint of Pauliner Helles, at £4.70 not cheap. The food menu looks quite interesting, but it helps if you like German sausage, or Wurst as they call it. Sausage based meals were in the £7 to £11 range. The German theme is accentuated by the staff wearing some kind of lederhosen garment, and the waitresses wearing frilly blouses in a sort of “Heidi” way. There is a tiny bar counter on the right as you enter, but they clearly don’t want punters loitering here, as I was directed to a table immediately on entering. Thus table sevice seems compulsory, which can be nice but usually slows things down I find, which can be a nuisance if one’s time is limited. This place is mainly intended to be a restaurant, but when I visited on Monday lunchtime there was no difficulty with me just wanting a drink. I don’t think that they were humouring me in some way, as the guv’nor, or should I say mein host, took the trouble to come over to my table to explain the other beers they did and gave me one their little postcard adverts. The interior of the room has a couple of rows of very chunky and solid wooden tables and benches. The main feature of this place for me however, is the terrace at the back overlooking the river, populated by a dozen or so wooden tables and benches. This place does make an interesting change as long as you like Wurst and German lager, but I still get the impression that it’s more restaurant than bar. But I doubt whether I would visit again if the weather made it more comfortable to sit inside than out – which I guess would be most of the time.