Where are all the French and British restaurants?

Where are all the French and British restaurants?

by | Sep 18, 2023 | Business, Eating Out, Restaurant

Where are all the French and British restaurants?

What the Royal Borough of Greenwich is in desperate need of are good French and British restaurants. Other surrounding boroughs have a few but we have hardly any considering we are a Royal borough that extols the virtue of British tourism.
We currently have one Café Rouge . which as very soon to be closed down and converted to a Banna Leaf restaurant which is a pan Asian restaurant, after the parent company of Café Rouge got into financial difficulties.

That will leave just the Champagne and Fromage Bistro which although technically a restaurant only really specialises in, you guest it Champagne and Cheese with maybe a few cold meats on the side. Hardly what you would call a proper French restaurant.
Then we have our British restaurants. I have had to delete so many British restaurants this year that I am reduced to scouring the locations of Fish and chip restaurants and Pie and Mash restaurants. These are no doubt worthy of being classed as British restaurants as many of us Brits regularly frequent these establishments, but what we really need are independent steakhouses or proper British restaurants.

Where is all the British grub you may well ask, and I will tell you. It’s in the Pubs of Greenwich.
We have great British food being served in style at places such as The Greenwich Tavern and the Cutty Sark and Enderby House in Greenwich and the Dial Arch and Guard House in Woolwich. In fact almost every pub in the Borough will serve British food of some sort you just have to do trial and error to find the good ones.

The Duke of Greenwich opening day.

The Duke of Greenwich opening day.

by | Jul 13, 2023 | Business, Eating Out, Pub

Duke of Greenwich opening day.

On a lovely sunny evening on Wednesday 12th July we went t the opening of the new pub called The Duke of Greenwich (formerly The Vanbrugh).

I was mistaken in my last blog when I said that I thought the pub had been gutted and was completely different inside. Inside the layout is still the same.

The selection of craft and real ale beers on sale is most impressive although the barman did seem to go into a state of mind confusion when the wife asked for a glass of Pinot Grigio. She settled for a Sauvignon Blanc, which he could handle. I being a CAMRA member wanted to try out the real ales on offer.

Most of the real ales on offer were from the Brew By Numbers brewery which brews excellent beers just down the road by the river.

My wife also tried a Portuguese wine called ‘Chin Chin’ which she said was very nice.

The main food on offer that day was supplied by the large BBQ stage set up in the gardens although I am sure other food was being prepared in the restaurant part but was largely being ignored in favour of the BBQ.

I will eventually get around to writing a review about this place, but it will not be based on the opening day as that would be unfair. Most pubs are different in vibe and ambience once the celebrations are over and a more normal way of life sets in.

Going forward even if they kept the pub as it was on the opening day, I would be OK with that as we enjoyed ourselves. I will also try out their food to see what sort of selection they have but I strongly suspect that they will keep it as a basic pub grub establishment, which is fine as long as the food quality remains good.

The only reason the Vanbrugh closed was the licensee retired and there was no one available to take up the reigns. Let’s hope the Duke of Greenwich is a success. I for one will be popping in occasionally.

The Vanbrugh reopens

The Vanbrugh reopens

by | Jun 29, 2023 | Business, Pub

The Vanbrugh reopens soon

Pub BarThe much missed pub, The Vanbrugh which closed on the 11th March 2022 is set to finally reopen within a matter of weeks according to the local blog www.fromthemurkydepths.co.uk and I for one will love to try it out under new management.

From a notice attached to the pub door the new owners are an independent company made up of 5 friends who work in the hospitality sector and already run a pub called The Jolly Gardeners in Vauxhall.

I used to love sitting out in the garden area in this pub in the summertime, so reopening in July hopefully we will get to enjoy the garden area again.

At one time The Vanbrugh was noted locally for its excellent cuisine and restaurant area, but by the time the pub closed the food standard seemed to go from high end cuisine to fairly bog-standard pub grub, but the quality of the food remained excellent, if not a bit wanting in selection on the high-end side.

Let’s hope the new owners re-establish a newly invigorated standard and get the restaurant back to how it once was.

I for one am glad some of our local pubs like The Vanbrugh and the Star and Garter, now called the Star of Greenwich Community Pub which we thought were gone for good are making a comeback.

Update:

When the old Vanbrugh pub reopens on Wednesday, July 12th it will not be called the Vanbrugh, but will now be called the Duke of Greenwich and gathering by the amount of building material and waste stored outside the place has been gutted and will have a completely new look.

The Vanbrugh reopens

Win some, lose some.

by | Mar 5, 2023 | Pub

Win some, lose some.

Over the last few years, we have lost at least three pubs namely, The Vanbrugh, The White Swan and the Star and Garter and now we are about to gain two new ones. When I say we gain two new ones I actually mean we gain one new one and get back one that lost its licence in 2020 due to a particularly violent stabbing incident.

The formerly named pub the Star and Garter is set to reopen soon as the Star of Greenwich and run as a community-based pub rather than a commercial business enterprise and is at the moment trying to raise money in this endeavour by crowdfunding.

Their aim is to run the pub as a community pub run by east Greenwich people for east Greenwich people.

If you want to contribute to the crowdfunding then visit their website: The Star of Greenwich – Home

The other new pub is the new Wetherspoons pub at the O2 called the Stargazer which is planned to open on 21st March 2023.

The Wetherspoon business model has a bit of a bad reputation as well as the type of clientele that it attracts, which unfortunately includes me. I love the cheap prices (who doesn’t) as well as the large selection of beers and ales on offer.

Unfortunately, it can be noted that when a Wetherspoons opens near a well-established local the local struggles to compete against a giant like Wetherspoons and many go under.

There are a number of pubs in the O2 already that are charging a fairly high price for a pint of beer compared to Wetherspoons. The Observatory, a Nicholson’s pub, The Slug and Lettuce O2, an All Bar One and the O2 Blue Room. I’m sure they cannot be happy with their new neighbour.

Pub Bar

Lost train services

Lost train services

by | Dec 5, 2022 | Trains, Travel

Charing CrossLosing our Train services.

Here we go again, Transport for London (TfL) have decided that they need to give the commuter a better service by cutting a service that has worked perfectly fine for decades.

On the 11th of December we lose the direct Greenwich line trains to Charing Cross. Despite attempts by Greenwich council to reconsider the proposed plans TfL are going ahead and cutting the service anyway.

I personally have taken the service from Charlton to Charing Cross almost every workday for the last 4 years and the service was ideal for both me and my wife.

From the 11th December all trains on the Greenwich line will terminate at Cannon Street so If you want to get to Charing Cross you have to either change trains at London Bridge or take the Circle or District underground line from Cannon Street to the Embankment.

TfL tried to cut the Charing Cross Greenwich line service back in 2014 but was stopped after a big public backlash.

Many years ago, we even had a service on the Greenwich line to Victoria. A very slow service but a service none the less.

All this comes less than a year after they improved our very convenient bus service to Lewisham by redirecting the 180 bus route at Charlton to go to North Greenwich instead of Lewisham.

This is Charing Cross service cut is not only happening on the Greenwich line, but also on the Bexleyheath and Eltham line.

All I can say to TfL is please, please, please stop giving us a better service and leave our transport services alone. Stop patronising us by claiming it will give us a better service when it obviously will not.