The Grange, Wallington

This is a large bar and Indian restaurant, set inside a grand looking building in the pleasant Beddington Park. Whilst the building, along with its fancy, if somewhat unattended, gardens, looks good on approach, be prepared for a major disappointment within, as the place has been completely gutted and remade in the blandest style imaginable, with not the slightest hint of an original feature to be found. As you enter through the spacious lobby area, you find yourself at a junction with the bar area to your left and a large restaurant space to the right. The servery is along the end wall and has one of the ugliest bar backs I think I’ve ever seen – I think it’s supposed to look like a big sheet of ice or something, but it doesn’t really pull it off. There’s some basic seating over to this side in a very drab space with no décor and little in the way of atmosphere. The restaurant area is marginally better thanks to comfier seating options and a nice view across the park out of the rear conservatory windows, although you can only sit here If you’re planning on having a meal. Thankfully, that’s exactly what we were doing and we found the service to be good but the food a little mediocre. No surprises to hear that there’s no cask ale on the bar, but they did have one interesting, and somewhat unexpected, keg option in the shape of Laine Ripper IPA, which was not too bad and worked well with my curry. The waiting staff were fairly attentive all night until it came to paying for our bill, at which point they all seemed to vanish off the face of the Earth, leaving us waiting for a considerable amount of time. I can’t say I came here with particularly high hopes, as I knew this place was likely to be more food focussed than wet-led, but even so, this was a bit of a disappointment. I’m struggling to recall the last time I visited a pub in such a fine-looking building but with a totally uninteresting interior and the lack of decent ale and dreadful interior design only made things worse. Might be worth a shot if you fancy a curry but carry on into Carshalton for all your pub needs. Date of visit - 8th July 2023

Set in beautiful grounds (Beddington Park) the opportunity to put in a top quality venue has been utterly missed. The interior has a bar to the left and an Indian restaurant section to the right, the smell of which pervades the entire place. Many twilds. The bar area appears to have been put together with offcuts from the local IKEA - soulless doesn't even begin to describe it. Two pumps both dispensing GK OSH in fair condition. Unless it’s a nice day and you sit outside, my advice would be not to bother. 3.5