Punch Tavern

chrisp

Punchy 19th June 2009

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Reading this blog, and others like it (For We Are Legion), you may be forgiven for being under the impression that London is stuffed full of buzzy gastropubs, exciting ethnic grills and gleaming temples of gastronomy, and finding somewhere good to eat requires little to no effort at all. Sadly, although things have certainly improved in the last 10-15 years, crap restaurants are still very much a feature. I've ranted about Angus Steakhouses at length before, but there's still no excuse for them, or Bella Pasta, or All Bar One, or any of the other chain pubs and restaurants that blight our city. Once you've been to your local Slug & Lettuce and paid £8 for a horrible "vegetarian dipping platter" it becomes all too obvious why it's so difficult to get a table at the Anchor & Hope.

That said, there's a part of me that realises that many gastropubs, with their fancy Mediterranean ingredients and hawing clientele, aren't for everyone. Some are more elitist than others, certainly - I've always found the Eagle on Farringdon Road to be very accessible, whereas the Swan on Fetter Lane is basically a restaurant in a pub - but surely there's room for just a normal, cosy little boozer which serves decent food for people who quite rightly consider paying £15 for bangers and mash a bit too much? Step forward, the Punch Tavern, on Fleet Street.

Newly refurbished and relaunched, with a chef of refreshingly humble origins and a menu of heart-warmingly familiar British dishes, the Punch Tavern is a beautiful old building that very much deserved the attention. I was invited to lunch with a couple of other bloggers to try out their new menu, and got stuck in right away to a pint of Summer Lightning bitter and a plate of devilled chicken livers on toast.

For your £4.50 you get an impressively generous mound of what is admittedly a budget cut of offal, with a marvellously rich sauce. Not very "devilled" perhaps - could have done with a bit more of the hot stuff - but no major complaints.

My main course of duck roast was similarly generous for the measly £8.50 price point. A nice moist duck quarter, with creamed leeks and a good selection of roasted vegetables, my only complaint was with the soggy, greasy Yorkshire pud. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - if you can't do a proper Yorkshire pudding (and as far as I know, nobody in London can), then don't even try. There's a whole generation of people who have grown up believing a Yorkshire pud is a tiny cupcake-sized pillow of pastry, instead of the 15" square behemoths filled with gravy my gran used to serve as a starter. And it makes me sad.

Anyway, that aside, I can really recommend the Punch, and not just because I wasn't paying on this occasion. It's a friendly and accessible little boozer trying to serve fresh, hearty food without any pretensions towards trendy fads or eye-watering central-London tourist prices. It deserves to do very well.

andybrown

Packs a punch (ok, i'm sorry) 9th March 2009

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Fleet Street has plenty of good pubs, of course it does, this is a given.

Oh wait, if you didn't know that, then you should make yourself acquainted with some of them, then get back to me.

Ready? Good. Ok so yes, Fleet Street, lots of good pubs, some of my favourite pubs in the world, in fact, are on or close to Fleet Street. So it takes something special to choose between them. And that something, in this specific case, is pie.

Yes. Pie. Such a short word for something with so many possibilities, and such potential for triumph and despondency, glory and misery. Pie. Say it. Roll it around your mouth for a while. Chew it, if you like.

Now, holding that thought in your mind, consider the parlous state of so much pub food in London. I know there are gastropubs, and they do some genuinely marvellous work, but there is also a lot of cack being reheated and palmed off on the undeserving public, and besides a lot of gastropubs are really pricey.

The Punch, on the other hand, all history and satirical journals and fairground wifebeaters and Victorian atmosphere aside, does food really bloody well, and unlike a lot of places, it also does it at a reasonable price.

It isn't the most beautiful pub in the area, but it would probably have to be the Hanging Gardens of sodding Babylon to beat the local competition on looks, given the proximity of the Cheese and the Blackfriar etc etc. So it's still lovely, and has a lovely tiled porch, and anyway shut up. The alcohol is perfectly good, well-served, not too pricey, they have all sorts of events in the evening and there's a room at the back you can book and sometimes it's really busy because it's in the city so it can get really full of city wankers and bla bla bla look this isn't the point, I can't hold back any longer, I'm so ashamed but I just have to get it out of my system.

I was beaten by a pie.

Specifically, a square pie, filled with chicken and mushrooms and some other things, along with a load of mash, and some roasted veg. I couldn't finish it. I wanted to finish it, I wanted so badly to finish it I was considering tipping the plate into my pocket, but I couldn't because there was just too sodding much of it. I gamely managed the veg, and attacked the mash in as much as my appetite would allow, but I shit ye not, I was absolutely starving when I went in, and I still couldn't get it all in. I still think about that pie from time to time, on my own, late at night, and I have a little cry, just a little one, thinking about the pie that got away.

Pie *sniff* I salute you.

So yes, the Punch. Go there and have a drink. Incorporate it into a pub crawl if you like. But I defy you to finish one of their pies.

stantoncarlisle

That's the way to Do It! 9th December 2008

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Awesome old bar. Real piece of history. There's less Punch memorabilia dotted around than I was expecting. Some small wooden carvings above the bar. No Punch doorstops, clocks or anything like that. This is just a fabulous old pub that's incredibly well preserved. They do lunches here for £7.95. Beer is around £3,50 a pint. The food looks like good pub grub, freshly made deep fried fish, chips and peas. Great old London boozer. Gets packed in the evening & lunchtimes with local "salarymen".