Tag Archives: pub food

Ten Best Places to Eat in Greater Kennington # 9

+ One Sunday Roast

The Jolly Gardeners

If this looks familiar then you’re correct, as we posted this a month ago. The Gardeners are the second best Sunday Roast and have popped in at number nine. But who’s on top?

For purposes relating to our very scientific yet hugely subjective top ten list of best places to eat in Greater Kennington, we recently paid an overdue visit to Jolly Gardeners pub in Black Prince Road after Karen from Finance kept banging on about their Sunday roast. 

Karen opted for the silverside beef and it was very full flavoured but at the chewier end of roast beef options, so not to all tastes. The real success of her meal was the varied and abundant sides. Had more than one person been having a roast plate then these would have been served family-style for sharing. In Karen’s case, she simply had a very full plate. The accompaniments were totally top notch: mixed colour carrots, parsnips, savoy cabbage, sweet potato mash, and decent roasties. The Yorkshire pudding was plump and homemade (we looked for Aunt Bessie under the table and she was nowhere to be found). We were pleased to see that the Gardeners no longer serve beef from retired cows. While more ethical, we felt bad for those poor bovines who managed to spend their entire lives not being turned into a juicy steak or decorative belt, only for THIS TO HAPPEN. 

Your scribe decided to go vegetarian and have a wild mushroom, sweet potato, and Guinness pie. The Guinness took the sweetness edge off the potatoes, which was desired, and a little nicked gravy from Karen was an added addition. It was served in a little jug that was very appealing. This pleasing portion had notes of thyme and of course the added nuttiness of the mushroom. All told, it was plenty of food and carefully prepared. These are high end roasts, which at £21 – £24 they should be. Sometimes it is worth paying for quality.

The Gardeners also operate the petite upmarket food shop Ginger Provisions next door, in addition to great lunch spot Simply Bread which we reviewed in 2022. When we asked the 25 year old sandwich barista if he was aware that the shop name rhymes with a washed up 80’s pop band, he stared at us with a mix of confusion and pity, but we’ll ignore that.

Duchy Arms – now the best pub food in Kennington?

Duchy Arms - kenningtonrunoff.com

The Duchy Arms used to be an old men’s pub (their old website is still live), then after it closed it was briefly a squatted “community centre” with classes on how to feel comfortable with female body hair and such like.

Next we heard of it was an article on the website of an unpleasant but popular newspaper whose name we prefer not to write, reporting that Prince Charles’s chef Visen Anenden had quit to become the Duchy’s head chef, with investment from Prince Charles’s valet Tim McCandless, and the pub (located on land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall) would be serving some of the Prince’s favourite dishes. All of the above live in Kennington except Prince Charles who owns Kennington but weirdly lives elsewhere. The newspaper also reports that Tim’s co-investor is Kowsar Hoque. Could this be the same Kowsar Hoque whose “customer is always wrong” attitude has brought such colour to his Kennington Tandoori’s TripAdvisor page?

So anyway, we finally made it along to the Duchy for Comfort Tuesdays, where they serve comfort foods such as chicken kiev, Home Farm at Highgrove (that’s Prince Charles’ farm) veal burger, and apple crumble. We had the globe artichoke, salsify and chard macaroni cheese which basically a posh version of a rather good dish Pret a Manger have started doing recently:

Duchy Arms globe artichoke, salsify and chard macaroni cheese - kenningtonrunoff.com

And the Home Farm at Highgrove Welsh lamb shepherd’s pie:

Duchy Arms Home Farm at Highgrove Welsh lamb shepherd's pie - kenningtonrunoff.com

Both were pretty much flawless. Could this be the best pub food in Kennington? We need to go again on a different night but yes, we think it could. Visit their Twitter to see their menus.

The wine list starts at £18 and stops at £29.50 for a dry sparkling rose. For real ale fans, they have Seafarers on tap for £3.75 a pint, as well as London Pride, and four guest ales in bottles

They’ve done a decent job on the interior as well (not that you can really tell from this photo):

Duchy Arms interior - kenningtonrunoff.com

So if you value great food, get along there soon and often – the Duchy Arms needs support. When we were there, there were ten customers including us. When we walked past on Saturday afternoon, there was one person in there that we could see – the barman. It’s not the most prominent location (on Sancroft Street), but it’s only a quarter of a mile from The Dog House and The Tommyfield and it’s well worth the effort.

Our message to the Duchy Arms is: sort out your website and your marketing – if you put half as much effort into this as you do into your food, you’d be rammed every night. And don’t let Kowsar near your social media.

Update: the Duchy Arms do have a new website, here.