London is riddled with gastropubs. The line between pub and gastropub used to be clear, but now it seems, any tarted up old boozer serving a croquette can feasibly pass as the latter. It makes visiting them a bit of a lottery - nicely renovated old drinking dens are by nature very charming and pleasant places, but they don’t always have real substance underneath the layers of Farrow and Ball.
If you want to see how it should be done, though, come to Camberwell. The Kerfield Arms stands resplendent in deep forest green just off the High Street (and close enough to The Camberwell Arms to draw a bead of sweat from Mike Davies’ brow). Inside, the once pokey old pub has been opened out into a magnificent dining room, with original wood floors lovingly restored, and grand black metal chandeliers hanging from the double-height ceilings. Lots of space has been carved out for drinkers too, which shows admirable respect for pint-drinkers and bar-proppers.
The food comes with high expectations, with the team here also running The Baring in Islington. We’ll say this - somewhere here certainly knows how to write a menu. ‘Yorkshire hogget, violet artichokes, bagna cauda and pine nuts’ is pure pub poetry, and the resulting dish isn’t bad either, with big chunks of pink hogget tumbled with roasted artichokes, doused in lamb sauce and bagna cauda.
The team has a knack for transforming good dishes into great ones - case in point, a chunky, crosscut Marmande tomato, which has been punched up with a hefty smoking over coals, and big chunks of sweet ricotta mustia gently softened over the top. A handsome shish of Cornish squid and lardo is fast becoming a signature, and in combination with a handful of sea greens, it’s a revelatory bit of cooking.
Gastropub cooking is about big flavours, and on that front, The Kerfield Arms has nailed the brief. Desserts are excellent too, particularly a chamomile custard doughnut. Which is all to say, this really is close to the perfect pub package, much like The Baring. If you’re experiencing gastropub fatigue, we think we’ve found the cure.