The Temperance, SW6

Situated near Putney Bridge, this has always been a place that I have walked past on my occasional trek from the station to Craven Cottage without feeling the need to pay it a visit. Before being completely revamped 5 or 6 years ago and renamed the Temperance (to reflect the building’s initial useage as a Temperance Billiards Hall) the place had a poor reputation and underwent several image and name changes, most recently as an O’Neills. Armed with some more recent reports of a much improved venue, I decided to give the place a fresh chance and was quite pleasantly surprised to find an interesting and tastefully refurbished building, good selection of beers and surprisingly reasonable prices. The main body of the pub is open plan with an island bar, bare floors with some tiled areas and a couple of side sections A few large potted plants bear coloured fairy lights and the modern artwork on the wall jockeys for position with a few well placed flat screens that cater for the sporting events. There is also a selection of board games on a sieboard near the bar and a mezzanine with a brace of pool tables and some additional mixed seating. Everything is housed under a high vaulted roof with metal framework and some attractive glazing. The lkitchen area can be seen from the main bar and the food menu was quite basic but reasonably priced with courses ranguing from burgers around £7.50 to steaks at £11. The 4 ales for my visit were Doom Bar, Pride, Bombardier and Sambrook Wandle, the last being decent enough and at £3 a pint, more than reasonable for the area. There was also a good range of top end continental lagers as wellas a few of the usual suspects. Service was a little on the slow side although to be fair, this was prior to a Fulham match. They are cask marquee accredited and certficates for their wines were also on display near a blackboard listing and display of pump clips. Overall, a pleasant and unexpected surprise and certainly a place I would be happy to make use of when passing by in the future.