BV London Pub of the Year 2022-23 - part one

It's that time of year again when I think about whether I should give up doing a London Pub of the Year award, and then go ahead and do it anyway. 

With another full year of no lockdowns and freedom-of-drinking under our belt, this year's contest should be a cracker. God only knows I've made enough visits to 'That London', as I'm now obligated to call it, in search of the capitals best pub. 

So here we go. This post will cover last years top five and part two will reveal five brand new challengers. Well, 'new' in the sense that they weren't in the 2021-22 contest.

Enjoy. Or don't.

Lost Breweries: B is for Brew Wharf

London's thriving beer scene of the last decade has seen a few casualties and suffered some collateral damage. Some might argue that the biggest loss was Young's merger with Charles Wells and subsequent move to Bedford.

I didn't care much about that. What I did care about was the loss of Brew Wharf, a brewpub that pretty much kick-started a revolution in my view.

And so, I give you this obituary I penned a while back - reproduced from the April/May 2015 edition of London Drinker - which summed up my thoughts at the time.

Since I wrote it, I've learned that the brewing equipment is now with Breakwater brewery in Dover, and some of the same people seem to be involved too, which may be cause for optimism even though they're taking a long while to get up and runni
ng. The Brew Wharf bar itself hardly ever seems to be open these days, however...

BV London Pub of the Year 2014-15 - part one

What's your favourite thing about the Summer?

For some it's the scalding hot weather; for others, the sensation of sand in their footwear that lingers long after they've left the beach.

But in a recent survey 98.8% of people said that the best thing about Summer was finding out which pub has won the BV Pub of the Year trophy. No, really. That's what 98.8% of people said.

And here we are, it's that time. That special, magical time. 98.8% of peoples favourite time.

As I explained recently, we're playing by some slightly new rules this year, but the principle remains pretty much the same: Last year's top five pubs compete against five new contenders and we'll reveal the winner some time next month.

Today we'll check up on the first batch - the best of the best from the 2013-14 competition...

A Christmas sermon on Food banks

The other day, while buying substantial quantities of cheese, ham and other delicious goodies at Borough Market, I considered how fortunate I am to be able to afford festive food of this quality.

There are many areas where society is becoming increasingly classless, but food and drink isn't really one of them.

At the top of the Tenenbaum, obviously, there are people far richer than I who can afford to enjoy this sort of artisan produce and shop in high-end markets all year round. (And indeed there is a tiny elite layer above them whose household staff buy it in for them!)

Then you've got people like me who, through a combination of economics and convenience are largely supermarket shoppers but who are lucky enough to be able to afford to splash out on Ginger Pig Ham occasionally. (It is fucking great ham even if it works out at about £3 per single slice!)

I know it's a bit of a crass generalisation, but lots of people will have a modest, Tescoey Christmas, with their tubes of Pringles, tins of Stella and industrial British pâté, and then there are those who will struggle to afford even this. Maybe even some who will be going hungry on Christmas Day.

I considered how I fitted somewhere in the middle of this socioeconomic Cheese and Ham sandwich, as I made a donation to the local Food bank, including a pack of Mince Pies (fairly decent ones too - Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, I think they were) to hopefully brighten someone else's Christmas.

They only accept dried/packaged/tinned food, otherwise I'd have gone the whole hog and taken them a bit of ham, maybe some of the gloriously stinky Époisses too.

BV London Pub of the Year 2013-14 - the results

Some jobs are very straightforward.

Look at human statues, for example. They barely move, and yet all-too-frequently have the temerity to expect payment for their efforts! Piss easy.

Being the bass player in the Stereo MCs is also an incredibly easy job. The bassline of 'Connected' contains, literally, one note (an F#), repeated about 500 times. Again, an absolute pissing piece of pissy piss.

A far more challenging task, however, is working out the podium finishes in the Pub of the Year. Believe me, I've spent many sleepless nights staying up weighing up the merits of each pub, trying to work out who should come where in the pecking order and listening to Stereo MCs.

But the wait is over. It's time to reveal the top five pubs in London and crown the 2013-2014 winner!

The Borough market that isn't Borough Market

Every time I walk through it, there seems to be one or two fewer stalls than there were the previous week...

When it first appeared a couple of months ago, there was an intriguing array of vendors tempting me with ripe melons, hot meat sandwiches and chocolatey muffins, but many seem to have given up already.

And I think I have a pretty good idea why.

If you're not familiar with the area and haven't yet twigged what the flying buggery I'm banging on about, I'm talking London Bridge Farmers' Market, which runs every Tuesday between 9 AM and 2 PM. For the time being at least.

It's a relatively new cog in a larger wheel that rolls more or less all over London, operating farmers' markets in different areas on different days of the week. So far, so organic wholesome goodness.

Just desserts?

If the best starter I've eaten this year was the foie gras at the Gay Hussar, then the best dessert I've had must surely be...

Well, let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

This week my Royal British Legion colleagues and I celebrated the public launch of our MoneyForce programme with a post-launch lunch and were keen to try somewhere new and different, near the office in the Borough area.

The rooftop take on shabby chic?

And so we found The Rooftop Cafe @ The Exchange in London Bridge street.

Merely finding it is a challenge in itself as it's extremely well hidden.

One has to go into a fairly nondescript office building next door to 'All Bar One', up a couple of floors in a lift (or take the stairs as I did), then ascend several more flights of rather shabby, fire-escapey stairs before finally arriving in the loft space where you'll find the Rooftop Cafe - an open kitchen, a few tables and one private dining room where our table was waiting for us.

I try not to be swayed by the fickleness of first impressions, but getting into the place isn't a red carpet experience - it all feels sort of unfinished right now. By the Summer there will be a proper outdoor rooftop bit which will increase their capacity, and being so close to the Shard, you can see where they think the money is.

That does rely on people actually being able to find the place though.

Meat Market

One of the perks of working close to Borough Market is that there's no shortage of options when the clock turns lunchtime.

So many eateries, so little time, and fasting two days a week as part of my diet means that it will take me a while to try everywhere - but given my penchant for the market, I was familiar with a fair few places in the area anyway.

I already knew, for example, about the good value lunches at the recently-reopened Brew Wharf, and the stunning Spanish street food at Cafe Brood. And, frankly, an unmanageably huge number of other brilliant places.

What I can't get my head around though is what will happen once the Shard is fully open for business and full of office workers (plus a few residents and hotel guests). How many pubs and restaurants and food stalls will the area need to cope with that lot once they move in?!? 

Who wants pork? Get your hot pork here! £6.50 to you, guv

I guess they'll have to build another, even taller Shard next door to accomodate their eating and drinking requirements...

Talking of big, impressive things, everybody knows that I'm a bit of a sucker for a large hot meat sandwich for my lunch, but it has to be said that I've yet to find somewhere that does this anywhere near as consistently well as Birley Salt Beef in Canary Wharf.
 
There are a couple of contenders in Borough Market which needed checking out, even if it's hard to stand out with so much competition going on in the area.

BV London Pub of the Year - part three

OK, so with a week to go, this Olympics shit is starting to annoy me just a little now.

It's not just the overcrowding (which is going to get a hell of a lot worse with every passing day) or the nonsensical changes to bus routes and train timetables, but the fact that most of us Londoners who will have to contend with weeks of hell haven't even managed to get decent tickets ourselves thanks to a ridulous ticketing system.

Having spent hours selecting stuff and submitting forms on their website at various times over the past year, I've ended up with the brilliant footballing spectable that is Gabon vs North Korea at Wembley, and one session of Paralympics athletics. Pfft.

And then there's the beer. Or, rather, there's the lack of beer. That's making me angry too.

The corporate sponsorship monster has decreed that our national drink, real ale, will not be served at any of the Olympic venues because the only food and drink that may be consumed must come from one of the tiny number of grotesquely massive corporations that have paid megabucks for 'exclusivity', namely Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Heinekin. Fuck that.

So London 2012 will be as lacking in London beer as it will be lacking in Londoners. It could have been a great platform to showcase some of the many excellent breweries that have sprung up throughout the capital in recent years, but, no, everybody will have to drink fizzy Dutch lager instead. For shame, you cunts, for shame!

Furthermore, despite being several miles away from the games, Brew Wharf is going to be closed for many months with the site given over to some sundry Olympian purpose. Will it reopen, and if it does, will it ever be the same again?

I've no idea, but it's yet another Olympics-related thing that's pissing me off, and while I'm sure the owners have been handsomely paid off, the uncertainty means that they miss out on a BV Pub of the year nomination. Hah, take that!

It's a shame because they do excellent food and agreeably hoppy beers, but an award from us will have to wait.

There are, however, two other pubs in the Borough Market area on the shortlist, and indeed one that is very close to the Olympic Park. How will they fare against the other contenders? Let's find the fuck out...

Broody Spaniards

So it was all too easy in the end.

Anyone expecting a closely-fought Euro 2012 final was disappointed as Spain romped to another Championship in record-breaking fashion. (Oh, and anybody Italian. They were probably disappointed too, obviously).

Pavement cafes: not just for the French!

If you're gripped by Espanomania, you could do a lot worse than head to Borough market where Cafe Brood turns a little corner of the thoroughfare into a veritiable Paella fiesta that's sure to sate your hunger for all things Spanish.

I can bang on for days about why I love the market and it's pubs and restaurants, but it really does seem like the one place in London where you really can enjoy any food or drink you'd ever want. Albeit sometimes at a price.

For the full, elongated Spanish Tapas experience, there's the classy (and fairly pricey) Brindisa restaurant on the corner of Southwark street, but this is quite simply street food at it's best. A less-sung hero, like Iker Casillas, that is quietly but widely acknowledged as being damn good at what they do.

Unchained eateries - a treble-mega review

One of my faithful readers - as opposed to an unfaithful one, presumably - recently noted that I’ve been reviewing a fair few chain restaurants lately.

While she didn’t quite stray into ‘criticise the critic’ territory, I detected a hint of ‘you can do better and I’m ever-so-slightly disappointed’ in her general tone, as if she thought somebody as interesting and eccentric as I should be looking beyond the boring, everyday chains.

In my defence, there is a method to the blandness, if you will: I aim for most of my reviews to be relevant to a pretty wide audience, and a broader range of readers will be able to experience Café Rouge or Haché by simply locating their nearest branch, rather than having to trek somewhere a long way away.

But I do take the point that independent restaurants are generally – though not always – superior, and so today I give you three of my favourite independent, one-of-a-kind restaurants. My 'chain reaction', as it were.

(OK, I'll stop making the sort of bad pun that has to be followed by 'if you will' or 'as it were' now. I can't believe I did it in consecutive paragraphs. What the fuck was I thinking?)

You might have to travel further to check them out, but these are places worth going out of your way for. Even if that means going to Tooting.

I’m talking Curry. I’m talking Pizza. And I’m talking Kebabs. Three of the major food groups.

And if you happen to live locally to one of these undiscovered gems, you're in for a big fat bastard of a treat. I guarantee it.

Trying to stop my heart breaking - a Valentine's tale

Having largely avoided going to the doctors for many years, events all seem to have caught up with me in recent weeks, and the conclusions drawn from a spate of visits to various clinical facilities for myriad assessments and blood tests has concluded that I suffer from high blood pressure and Type II diabetes. (In addition to the various gouty, asthmatic, arrythmic ailments that befouled me.)

Great.

Diabetes and high blood pressure are strange beasts, in that you don't necessarily 'suffer' from them (I have no discernable symptoms) but having them can make it a whole lot more likely one will suffer from things that are properly hurty - blindness, stroke, heart attack, heart failure etc.

(You'll have realised by now that this seasonal blogpipe has relatively little to do with love, but then St Valentine himself suffered from cardio-vascular problems and excess glucose, so it's topical. OK, maybe he didn't. I'm ill. Indulge me.)