The Earl Spencer, SW18

This dates from the late 19th century but I suspect was rebuilt in the 1930s, yet another public house reference to the eponymous family that once owned lands around Wandsworth. It also overlooks a car showroom that resembles Beaulieu Motor Museum, with a selection of mainly Ferraris, all totalling tens of millions of pounds. The interior is essentially modern and can be seen on Google and their gallery, resembling a standard restaurant not a pub. There were just a few somewhat young drinkers in on my Saturday visit at nearly 10.00pm, but what was inescapable was the unwatched sport, played through the Hi-Fi with deafening commentary then adverts. Cask amounted to Doom, Portobello Home Turf and Star at £2.80 a half and actually not bad, served by a bored-looking barmaid. With the interior appearance, ambience and deafening adverts, this was a very poor experience; the superior Gardeners is next door.

Official site of The Earl Spencer - www.pubanddining.co.uk

Official site of The Earl Spencer - www.pubanddining.co.uk

The main area is a bare boarded room with a central squint ended bar, seating being mostly at recycled old domestic dining tables, this room returns around to the left end of the bar to a smaller separate area. Green and cream walls, candles and foliage on the window cills, some décor of interest, a nice "Celebrated Toby Stout" mirror, wicker deer and cow heads, posters of fungi with the names in German and a concert flyer for The Merton Parkas, supported by Ultravox. The ceiling is moulded and has several fans, a selection of coloured glass balls fill another corner and there was a real fire on the go, roaring away with a pair of huge logs well alight. The kitchen and coffee machine down one end combined to make a proper din, so much so that I changed seats. The food menu looked fairly expensive and upmarket but no one was partaking on Saturday although it was well into the afternoon. Six handpumps, in two banks of three, Adnams Broadside, Otter Amber, Sambrooks Wandle, Harveys Sussex, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Sharps Cornish Coaster. I had the Coaster which was fine. It seems to have improved as a pub for drinkers since the last review with a reasonable if safe choice, it isn't traditional by anyone's standards but pub styles continue to evolve and if they are to survive then so be it.

There were two ales on during my visit – Old Hooky and London Pride, with a Doom Bar clip reversed. The Pride was £1.75 for a half, so at something like £3.50 a pint it matches the pub next door (The Gardeners) in charging a top of the range price for this part of London. This is a thoroughly madeover pub. It’s bare-boarded, with hard wooden settles, scrubbed solid wood tables, and a few normal tables and chairs. There are a few tables outside at the front. The bar back includes racks of wine bottles laid down, and with a shelf above them bearing large illuminated and multi-coloured jars of pickles and fruits. A large platter of loaves decorates the bar counter, presumably to aid the appearance of a continental bistro. There are the usual single-sheet printed daily menus on the bar (but not the tables for some reason – possibly it makes them look untidy). There’s no pub grub to be had here, with a typical item being “deep fried goujons of whiting, salad, aïoli, lemon” at £11.50. The menu was certainly imaginative, but the best item on it for me would be the steak and chips – sorry, I mean the “chargrilled bavette steak, chips, watercress, tomato and tarragon butter”. The bread and butter is complimentary. It’s a single-room pub/restaurant now, with a few photos on the wall providing decor, but with the majority of wall space taken up by three chalkboards advertising menu items; the wine list; and a coffee and tea menu. This is a decent enough place if you like gastropubs, but it’s now nothing like a traditional pub.