296a Camberwell New Road
Camberwell
London, SE5 0RP
020 7274 7037
The Bear Free House promises to search out the best, the unusual, the hard-to-find beers, porters and perries of the UK. They also promise to serve the best evening menu, Saturday brunch and Sunday roast around!
Went to the quiz night at The Bear on Tuesday for the first time with three friends. The pub was packed with all the tables taken in the front and back room and a pretty fun atmosphere. I'd heard about it from my friend who has been going to eat and drink there for a few months. He's been trying to drag me down for a while but I was a bit dubious about it sitting opposite the bus garage on a pretty ugly stretch of road. However....I was pleasantly surprised to find a traditional english boozer with a wide range of beers and wine and an interesting menu. It's certainly not a standard pub menu with no burger in sight and an artichoke barigoule (watery stew anyone???) as one of the starters. I had the venison which was delicious and my friends enjoyed thir food. We had a bottle of the house red which was a merlot at £13.00 and one of my bitter drinking friends enjoyed the three obscure ales they had, all priced at £3.20. Not my scene at all!!! The service was very good. Our Polish waitress was friendly and they seemed to cope with the sometimes raucous quiz players. All in all, a very enjoyable evening, and certainly some of the best food we've had in Camberwell, where the food scene just seems to be getting better and better. We didn't win the quiz but we'll definately be back for next week.
I love that there are more and more great places to eat out in Camberwell and I'm annoyed this place didn't exist when I lived about 5 minutes away! They have a really good selection of bottles. When we went, they had 2 on the specials board that day and were £2.50 each.
I had the onglet (medium rare) with snail butter and chips. I wasn't really familiar with that cut of meat but I thoroughly enjoyed it. They weren't holding back on the portion either! The snail butter was quite nice but didn't have huge amounts of flavour.
Sam had a chicken and mushroom pie with mashed potato and some vegetables. It was quite massive as you can see in the photo. That could have been a serving for 2 as even he couldn't finish it. This is somewhere I'll definitely come back to.
I dined at the Bear (on the corner of Camberwell Station Road and Camberwell New Road) for a late sunday lunch with my Mum yesterday and it was brilliant. It's previous incarnation about 6 months ago was a slightly less pleasant pub of no particular standing but since the refurbishment I have been very impressed! The house red (a merlot i believe) is very drinkable and the roast dinner for 2 ppl was very reasonable at £21 for both. The Roast beef and vegetables were delicious. I believe they have a pub quiz on tuesdays but have not been yet so I can't review that. However if the standard of the food on Sunday was anything to go by I'll be back soon. The service was also great especially as we were sitting next to a table of 30, one might fear of being forgotten about but the waitresses and bar staff were very good. Plus they serve Illy coffee which is my favourite! All in all a really enjoyable sunday afternoon.
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