Thursday 23 January 2014

The Rookery - Clapham


A desirable place to live, Clapham. Eateries, drinkeries, greeneries, and a chicken shop with a TV crew. Here exists every crawl you could image: club, food, pub. The latter, all tweeting their wares to the tech literate and highly social residents of this South London village. And why not? That's how we found The Rookery after all.

A tiny fronted venue overlooking the Common, The Rookery is a pub when empty and a restaurant when full. The taps flow with Meantime and a dusty cocktail list sits on a shelf. Squinting at the menu through the dim candlelight - this really is the trend - only one word was clear: pie. Rich, sticky venison underneath an egg glazed crust. Moreish and hugely filling, it would have benefited from a few vegetables. Shallots, carrots, celery, perhaps some mushrooms, something to absorb that intense flavour and provide a change to the endless forkfuls of meat.

While pie is the food of the trencherman, nothing comes closer to that overused term 'comfort food' than bread and butter pudding. Usually something to shy away from in restaurants - chefs usually fail to mimic the delicious inconsistencies of home cooking - this version, with a layer of chocolate and banana, had that farmhouse kitchen greatness to it. Thick, stodgy, sweet, burnt, and soggy, all rolled in to one dish - probably a welcome sight after a march around the common, and definitely requiring another one after to burn through those calories. If only it hadn't been raining.

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