The Duchy Arms for BBQ

And we’re off! And this spot was achieved for excellence in smoked meats

We’ve always felt slightly bad for the Duchy Arms as it suffers from BPLS, otherwise known as Bad Pub Location Syndrome. Located in Sancroft Street, you might have never seen the place in spite of its massive beer garden. In our role as ‘random yet glamourous members of the public’, we got talking to manager Josephine (who lives behind Sally White’s, tick!) who acknowledged that previous owners were ploughing through managers and menus faster than Boris Johnson has kids, and part of this was due to the location. So thinking creatively, they’ve turned the place into a barbeque smokehouse, an action of which we thoroughly approve.  

Your scribe and ‘office fun guy’ Phil from Accounts first ventured into the small plates section  by asking if Jager bombs count as a small plate. After being summarily kicked under the table, Phil ordered a pickles plate and some lamb ribs. The pickles were a mix of gherkin, carrot and radish; substantial rather than sliced and tasting home-prepared. They were sweet and sour and only gently acidic. This balanced quite well against the two fairly large lamb ribs that were as rich, fatty and lamby as you would hope. 

As Phil will do anything for free food, he then selected baby back ribs and your scribe grabbed the beef cheek. The ribs were a portion of two racks and had a nice glaze to them and pork meat that slid off the bone. You don’t need a sticky sauce when the meat is this good and the celeriac slaw accompaniment was great. The beef cheek wins the prize for the most surprised reaction when it arrived: as a big black glistening lump not unlike a genetically modified Malteser.  The dark smoked roast on the outside yielded to paler, supersoft meat within. If you don’t like fiddling with bones, it’s a good way to go – sticky, unctuous, super rich and smoking (traits that no one in the office possesses). It came incongruously with a  healthy cauliflower, smoke-grilled with curry spices and sat on what we assumed was hummus but was in fact a bean puree.  The side-order of chilli and garlic corn, slathered in deep smoked butter, pushed us further on the road to diabetes, but was great.

So how does the smokehouse menu stack up? The answer is excellently due to its breadth of barbecue offerings and its execution in a giant smoker in the garden. And believe it or not the Duchy does offer vegetarian items but veggies be warned – you will be seeing your favourite barnyard critters in flames in front of you as they have a giant smoker. We cannot vouch for the other items, but we think a deviation from pub classics is a good development in Kennington and we wish them the best of luck.