Food & Drink

LONG LIVE THE PUB!

Comments (1)

4 May 2011

Simon The Tanner
321 Long Lane
Bermondsey
SE1
020 7357 8740

Oliver Pugh
oliverp@southwarknews.org

I DO love a good pub. Not just a pub, a boozer.

It's something that Bermondsey still does well but, as has been well recorded, it’s increasingly rare.Where once on every corner there were old wood panelled boozers, all too often they are now converted into flats, shops, or artisan bakeries, where a humble loaf robs you of £3.

Either that or someone’s covered it in flock wallpaper, stuck a chandelier in it and called it a gastro-pub. Here lies something of a bugbear.Deep-fried battered squid tentacles and pig’s ear salads are tasty, no doubt, but I don’t want to eat them all the time; I don’t want to pay for them all the time either.

This is the problem with the rabbit-like spread of the gastro – Thumper needs to be told that however much fun it is to go shagging around in the field, you can have too much of a good thing. There’s only space for so many rabbits. Now, it feels like you have to hunt out a good drinking hole.

Everywhere else we’re confronted with what from the outside looks like it might be somewhere to enjoy a pint – perhaps by yourself with a newspaper – but in fact is packed with dining tables and cutlery, full of the smell of an open kitchen dishing up trotter wantons and totally uncomfortable for those who just want a drink. Sometimes – most of the time – I don’t want a fancy foodie’s pub, all I want is a drink.

It’s something that Bermondsey still does well but, as has been well recorded, it’s increasingly rare.Where once on every corner there were old wood panelled boozers, all too often they are now converted into flats, shops, or artisan bakeries, where a humble loaf robs you of £3. Either that or someone’s covered it in flock wallpaper, stuck a chandelier in it and called it a gastro-pub. Here lies something of a bugbear.

Deep-fried battered squid tentacles and pig’s ear salads are tasty, no doubt, but I don’t want to eat them all the time; I don’t want to pay for them all the time either. This is the problem with the rabbit-like spread of the gastro – Thumper needs to be told that however much fun it is to go shagging around in the field, you can have too much of a good thing. There’s only space for so many rabbits.

Now, it feels like you have to hunt out a good drinking hole. Everywhere else we’re confronted with what from the outside looks like it might be somewhere to enjoy a pint – perhaps by yourself with a newspaper – but in fact is packed with dining tables and cutlery, full of the smell of an open kitchen dishing up trotter wantons and totally uncomfortable for those who just want a drink. Sometimes – most of the time – I don’t want a fancy foodie’s pub, all I want is a drink.

So it was with great surprise, and a hangover, that I walked into Simon the Tanner, in Bermondsey, at the end of two very long weekends. I say hangover, but it was not a runo- the-mill head kicker. Two four-day weekends, Easter eggs, St George’s Day, the Royal Wedding, and a pay day! It’s any wonder I survived, but by the end of that unusually extended period of “Why not? It’s (nearly) the weekend!” consumption I, and I probably wasn’t the only one, was left feeling a little jaded.

Simon the Tanner, which was closed for five years until ten weeks ago, is on Long Lane and at the bottom of the evertrendy Bermondsey Street.

When I heard it had reopened, I have to say I expected another gastro, but happily it’s not, and deliberately so. Beer is by all accounts the new owners’ first concern and there’s an excellent selection, taking in some really interesting pilsners, a delicious number from Scotland, and some of the ales crafted at the micro-brewery, Kernel, under the arches around the corner. The bar was busy when we arrived on Monday night and I could only see one table eating.
Hooray, it was a pub  after all! We took a seat, tucked into some beers and had a look at the menu. Everything was less than a tenner, which is a good start, and it was filled with good-looking, simple food.

Even the snacks looked tempting: Welsh rarebit with a poached egg, or half a Mrs King’s pork pie (the best there is) for £3.50, which would be great with a pint on the way home from work... For dinner I wasn’t actually that hungry (bit of a problem when you’re supposed to be doing a food review) so I ended up going for the Ploughman’s.

The pork pie was of course a Mrs King’s – anyone who has made pork pies by hand since 1853 should probably be trusted. The rest was made up of some decent mature Irish cheddar, tangy piccalilli, pickle, and some hearty bread. Good stuff to graze on for sure.

My girlfriend had the bangers and mash and said it was pretty tasty – the mash especially. The drinks however were lovely and each of them a surprise.

The Harviestoun lager from Clackmannanshire was deliciously hoppy and a touch sweet, the weird black IPA from Kernel was really unexpected and at a punchy seven percent it even sorted out my hangover. I took a bit of a run up after the Ploughman’s and had a pudding, an apple and rhubarb crumble with custard, which was a good portion for £5 and tasted great. It was all washed down with another beer, a feisty little IPA called Punk, from Brew dog brewery, again up in Scotland.

I am not the first to moan about the death of the pub and I will not be the last – Southwark has seen more pubs close than almost anywhere else in the country, so to see one - and a freehold at that - being resurrected in such honest fashion is really good news. I would urge everyone to visit for a pie and a pint at the very least. The gastro pub is dead, long live the pub!

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Comments (1)

1. At 12:45 PM on 06 May 2011, Mark wrote:
Big fan of Simon the Tanner. Sometimes underwhelmed by the cask selection - would love to see JHB or Hophead as a permanent beer - but they are always well kept and the alternative is the excellent Camden pale ale, so I'm happy. The BLT and bacon sandwich go down well on a weekend morning, although they serve them on tiny chopping boards for some reason, need to eat there of an evening some time.
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