Barnes, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

This “unspoilt, cosy and simply furnished” late-Victorian pub, “tucked away down a side street” in the cute ‘Little Chelsea’ enclave of Barnes, is “a joy to visit for its competently cooked food and excellent beer” – “not surprisingly it has loyal local support”. Top Tip – sweet garden in summer.

For “Barnes at brunch” – or as a “very useful and convenient place to eat before a film” – the “family-friendly” dining room in the “nice surroundings” of Barnes’s iconic recording-studio- turned-indie-cinema “serves its purpose” (and the outdoor terrace further adds to its appeal as a social hub in decent weather). But the menu is “disappointingly limited and dull, even if pretty well executed”.

Fans of Rebecca Mascarenhas’s Barnes fixture (which some may still recall as Sonny’s, long RIP) say it “deserves higher recognition and praise”, benefitting as it does from “the Phil Howard magic” (the co-owner, who lives nearby) in delivering “excellent” food (for example, “a perfect lobster and chips lunch”) and a “thoughtfully compiled wine list”. But what is a “sophisticated setting” for many supporters can also appear to “lack atmosphere”.

Few pubs in London boast as fine a location as this riverside tavern, at the Thames-side end of Barnes High Street (and next to the also-picturesque Bull’s Head). Abandoned to pizza and brasserie chains in recent decades, it’s now to be relaunched as a passion project by Patty & Bun founder, Joe Grossmann; and with front of house from Simon Walsh, who filled the same role at Hammersmith’s excellent Anglesea Arms.

2023 Review: An “ambitious newcomer” in Barnes, where veteran hospitality operator Christian Arden has transformed a former pub (fka The Tree House) to the tune of £400k, with chef Anthony Demetre (of Arbutus and Wild Honey) consulting on the menu. “The food is really good, fully deserving of its recent rave review in the Telegraph from William Sitwell!”