The White Hart, Crystal Palace, SE19

The White Hart is a fairly large pub that is situated in the middle of Crystal Palaces shopping area. Once inside there is a single U shaped room with the bar facing,the floor is tiled,the seating pew seats and tall tables and chairs to the front and bench seating on the left side,there is an op kitchen to the rear left. There were three real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Sambrooks Junction which went down well,the other beers were Skinners Lushingtons and Doom Bar. The pub was very busy on my Saturday afternoon visit. I thought this was a decent enough pub to have a drink in. Pub visited 16/4/2016

Official site of the White Hart, contains menu - www.thewhitehartse19.co.uk

Official site of the White Hart, contains menu - www.thewhitehartse19.co.uk

This is a large street corner pub on a prominent junction in Crystal Palace. The black exterior described by Rex in his review below has been repainted in the most garish shade of green, so there’s no chance of not finding the place. You enter into the bar area with part wood, part quarry stone flooring in a U shaped space with a curved bar counter. To the right of the bar is a drinking ledge with high stools looking out towards the busy junction and some sofas and low padded stools around a brick fireplace. The bar back is quite impressive and has a few features including a decorative sign bearing the words “Farrier and Saddler”, whilst a solitary TV screen across the room showed muted BBC news. To the left of the bar is a dining style area which extends through some large archways into an opened out second room with standard tables and chairs and what appeared to be relatively modern etched glasswork. In keeping with the pub’s name, there is a wooden deer’s head above the fireplace in this area. The dining section extends to the left rear part of the pub, where there is a room with tiled walls and pew seating – a bit clinical and cold for my liking, so I went back to the bar to drink my pint. There’s also a partly covered garden with a number of benches and drinking ledges and if you don’t mind traffic fumes, you can also sit on one of the benches out the front as well. There are daily menus with main meals priced at around a tenner and Sunday roasts a bit more. I was in on a Sunday and although I didn’t eat, the roasts smelt fantastic. Just two ales available at the bar – Fullers London Pride and Nicholson’s Pale Ale (this is an M&B pub, although not a Nicholson’s) with a Doom Bar clip reversed. The Pale Ale was okay although I had to wait an age to get served as the solitary barmaid was having a lengthy battle with a corkscrew and wine bottle. Keg stuff included Hogan’s Cider, Gaymers Pear Cider, Frulli, Leffe, Hoegaarden and White Stripe among others. A chalkboard sign on the bar was promoting something called Shepherd Neame Suffolk Blonde which I believe is a lager brewed in conjunction with Aspall’s Cyder, although I didn’t spot it on the taps. Unlike the nearby Alma, this place has clear areas for drinkers and diners which made my stay here a lot more comfortable. Having said that, I still got the impression that food is the priority and the fairly standard cask selection was hardly an inducement to return. A few simple changes could reap big improvements here – shame M&B are in charge, as I suspect they won’t be forthcoming.

Same old, same old, there can be three people in the pub and you still have to wait ten minutes to get served, for heavens sake M & B, get a decent manager in, rather than the school kids you keep employing. The place also needs a good clean, and the toilets are a disgrace, which if there was a decent range of beers with good service i would probably overlook, but there is neither, hence the low mark.

Visited on Sunday eve, just the usual Doombar in the way of ales, i always think that beer is something of an afterthought in The White Hart. It strikes me that the staff prefer to stand around chatting to each other and trying to be uber cool, rather than actually serve people, hence the long wait at the bar when the place is virtually empty. However the Doombar was pleasant enough and at least they had ale on today, unlike my last visit. Average M & B fare, but why put a kitchen on the bar in a pub this small ? The White Hart is better than some in Crystal Palace, but not as good as others.

This looks like another Victorian pub given something of an upmarket makeover. Outside it’s painted black, like so many of this type of pub, with the name in big, bold, red and white letters. Inside it’s totally opened up of course, with modern pine flooring, big solid tables, banquettes, upholstered benches complete with scatter cushions, and a mix of assorted standard chairs. I sat in the room on the left, but moved to the gloomy room at the back when they turned the volume of the (c)rap music up a notch. Luckily it wasn’t being piped into the back room, but the flashing lights under the benches at the back were an unusual (and distracting) feature that I’ve not seen in a pub before. One of the tables by the window had a lot of clutter on it denying customers the use of one of the best tables, and at one point a delivery of kitchen supplies was made, and was left for some time in front of the food counter. Menus are on the tables attached to clipboards. Main courses were around £8 - £9, but on the back of the menu they had a “prix fixe”, which had a limited selection of main courses for £5.95. They had a couple of ales on – Doom Bar and Sambrook’s Wandle. I had a pint of the latter that was OK, but at the fairly expensive price of £3.30 a pint for a 3.6% ale. I have to say that I found this a rather strange pub. You had the very bright front part of the pub in contrast to the gloomy rear, and with all the kitchen supplies sitting around on the floor near where I was sitting it felt a bit like I was having my lunch in a storeroom. It’s not a bad pub, but not really one to my taste.