The Anchor and Hope

After watching a play at the Old Vic, some friends and I were looking for a place in order to get out of the impending rain and have something to eat. There's a choice of several restaurants around Southwark tube station - Baltic, the Anchor and Hope, Tas, Livebait and another pub that serves Thai food next to Baltic. All reach a reasonably good minimum standard, but in my mind only the Anchor and Hope and Baltic are great.

We chose the Anchor and Hope because we left the Old Vic in mid-afternoon, which was a fairly convenient time to pitch up at the pub. The Anchor and Hope takes no reservations except for one seating on Sunday afternoon at 2pm, for which one needs to reserve a table on Monday without knowing the menu in advance. Given the popularity of the place, it's always best to go if one happens to have 2 spare hours to wait for a table, as we did. Adjacent image from thisislondon.co.uk.

The Anchor and Hope
36 The Cut
London SE1 8LP
020 7928 9898

The Anchor and Hope was one of Britain's first gastropubs when it opened way back in 1991. Numerous chefs, critics and regular diners have heaped praise on it, and it's deserved praise too. The pub won a Best Gastropub in the UK award in 2004, and serves unreconstructed, traditional British food. The chef is Jonathon Jones, who served me at the bar on this visit (I didn't know until I came to write this post). He was fairly patient when I asked for a wine glass to have my dram of Lagavulin 16 yo in - they don't serve wine in wine glasses at the bar, only in tumblers. Shame.

For what it's worth, the wine list has a lot of French and Italian stuff, with some good vintages available. We chose a Chiroubles 2005 which I will blog about separately. As far as whisky goes, the selection was alright - Macallan 10 yo, Lagavulin 16 yo, Cragganmore 12 yo and Maker's Mark, plus J&B and Jameson.

Anyway, my party of 8 had several drinks, until at 6pm they seated us in the main restaurant. The menu was interesting, to say the least. For starters, I had snail, bacon and watercress salad, which consisted of milk-fed snails with warm bacon, croutons, and watercress leaves - very savoury, with the snails full of snail flavour rather than garlic flavour as is usually the case when one orders escargots. The Pretty Lady had potato soup with foie gras, smooth, rich and full of cream. The foie gras was a slice that had been seared gently and was floated on top of the rich white soup (almost a veloute). Yogababe had crab on toast, fulfilling her obligations as a social animal eater. I thought the crab was a little overdone on the mayonnaise and lemon, with the toast a little too burnt. Other starters included a bolito misto and beetroot, ragstone cheese and orange.

For starters 5 of us, including myself, decided to go for a slow-cooked lamb shoulder with potato gratin, one of the Anchor and Hope's signature dishes. It was massive, and would have fed at least 7 of us. The gratin was wet and cheesy, with a little too much milk added for some. It was certainly wetter than what's available at La Bouchee, but I view it as a different style which is just as tasty. The lamb was pretty tender and soft, having been cooked for seven hours, but I feel that it would have benefited from being braised with more root vegetables for extra sweetness. Tasty nevertheless.

Other mains on the menu included rib of beef with chips for two, English lop (a breed of pig) with celeriac and beetroot, spinach and ricotta rotollo with green beans and aioli, which Yogababe had. She liked the rotollo, a pasta swiss roll filled with the beetroot, spinach and ricotta, but the aioli was a little too garlicky for her taste.

For dessert, CY asked for marmalade ice cream, another signature dish. Upon being informed that there was one scoop left, she pounced on it and was kind enough to share it around. It was lovely - bittersweet orange peel-flavoured ice cream, perfect texture and taste. I had a rhubarb and buttermilk pudding, which I shared with the Pretty Lady. It turned out to be a vanilla panna cotta with poached rhubarb on the side, a riff on rhubarb and custard. Very clever and tasty, even if the buttermilk pudding was a tad on the fragile side. CY also had a pistachio cake which was the best dessert in my opinion - warm, buttery and nutty, chockfull of pistachios with fresh cream and blood orange on the side.

I do dislike the no-bookings system that the Anchor and Hope operates. Intensely. However, when I do have a free afternoon, a meal there is not only enjoyable but very rewarding, especially in a large group of people. It's a great gastropub, but a no-bookings policy only serves to irritate customers.

Scores:

22 March 2008: TFQ = 26, CS = 25, S = 10, AD = 6, VfM = 8. Total = 75 points.

Note that I've taken away 12 points for the no-bookings system, and added 2 points for the good service.

What does this mean?