Here's good luck to the pint pot
Good luck to the barley mow
Jolly good luck to the pint pot
Good luck to the barley mow
(First verse of The Barley Mow, drinking song)
The luck of The Barley Mow in Limehouse, one of London's outstanding riverside pubs, ran out a few years back when Gordon Ramsay Holdings bought the pub and renamed it The Narrow. Until then, it had been a great pub with a modest dining room and a huge outside space allowing summer drinkers ample opportunity to fall into the readily accessible Thames in the days before health and safety thought that a barrier might be a good idea.
Back then, Gordon was riding high and all was well in Ramsay world, not a bust up, affair or fraud in sight and The Narrow, as we must now call it, changed overnight from being a boozer to a gastro pub. People keen to have the Hospital Road experience but on a budget saw the pub booking months in advance for a coveted table. Little surprise then that the outside terrace became an extended dining room conservatory and The Narrow completed its move to the dark side.
But where there is Gordon, scandal is rarely far away, and that bloodhound of investigative journalism, the Daily Mail, ran a story in April 2009 (read here) which claimed that the food being served at The Narrow was in fact 'boil in the bag' ready meals, shipped by transit van to the restaurant and then simply reheated and sold at six times cost. Ramsay Holdings replied that it was merely prep being done offsite and that real cooking was still taking place at The Narrow. Either way, and for various reasons, it's not a restaurant where we eat, but with it having been years since we were last there, we thought we'd give it another go.
Good luck to the barley mow
Jolly good luck to the pint pot
Good luck to the barley mow
(First verse of The Barley Mow, drinking song)
The luck of The Barley Mow in Limehouse, one of London's outstanding riverside pubs, ran out a few years back when Gordon Ramsay Holdings bought the pub and renamed it The Narrow. Until then, it had been a great pub with a modest dining room and a huge outside space allowing summer drinkers ample opportunity to fall into the readily accessible Thames in the days before health and safety thought that a barrier might be a good idea.
Back then, Gordon was riding high and all was well in Ramsay world, not a bust up, affair or fraud in sight and The Narrow, as we must now call it, changed overnight from being a boozer to a gastro pub. People keen to have the Hospital Road experience but on a budget saw the pub booking months in advance for a coveted table. Little surprise then that the outside terrace became an extended dining room conservatory and The Narrow completed its move to the dark side.
But where there is Gordon, scandal is rarely far away, and that bloodhound of investigative journalism, the Daily Mail, ran a story in April 2009 (read here) which claimed that the food being served at The Narrow was in fact 'boil in the bag' ready meals, shipped by transit van to the restaurant and then simply reheated and sold at six times cost. Ramsay Holdings replied that it was merely prep being done offsite and that real cooking was still taking place at The Narrow. Either way, and for various reasons, it's not a restaurant where we eat, but with it having been years since we were last there, we thought we'd give it another go.
outside...
... and in
While The Narrow has firmly positioned itself as a gastro pub, it is not however a star chaser, and an element of the pub has in fact been maintained and the menu focusses on up market pub food. In the starters line up, there's snacks too, so that as well as rabbit and ham terrine, herring roe on frilled sourdough and potted salmon, there's baby sausages, Welsh rarebit and Scotch egg with HP sauce, this being one of our choices. When it came, it was in fact pretty decent, the yolk just about runny, good sausage meat and a nice crisp coating, something we could happily eat any time we're in a pub.
The other choice came from the set lunch menu where three options are provided for each of the three courses and, at £20.13 (it's the GR 2013 menu you see), it does offer very good value. In fact, given that the VAT on this is over £3, and GR is donating £2 from each lunch menu to Help for Heroes, less than £15 actually goes to GR Holdings on this menu so it's hardly a big money spinner for him. Anyway, from this we chose the French onion soup with Gruyere crouton, which was piping hot, essential when there's snow on the ground and four portable heaters on full, trying to keep diners warm, and again, it was a perfectly acceptable starter.
The other choice came from the set lunch menu where three options are provided for each of the three courses and, at £20.13 (it's the GR 2013 menu you see), it does offer very good value. In fact, given that the VAT on this is over £3, and GR is donating £2 from each lunch menu to Help for Heroes, less than £15 actually goes to GR Holdings on this menu so it's hardly a big money spinner for him. Anyway, from this we chose the French onion soup with Gruyere crouton, which was piping hot, essential when there's snow on the ground and four portable heaters on full, trying to keep diners warm, and again, it was a perfectly acceptable starter.
Scotch egg, HP sauce
French onion soup with Gruyere crouton (from set lunch menu)
Mains were a little less successful. From the a la carte, the short rib burger with Monterey jack cheese, bacon slaw and chips was ordered medium-rare, with our waitress then saying medium rare is how they normally serve the burgers. When it arrived however, it was well done. This was a shame as the burger did in fact have lots of flavour. The bun meanwhile disintegrated shortly after arrival. This could actually be a pretty good burger.
From the set menu, it was baked cod with clams and smoked bacon. They didn't quite pull it off despite being a relatively simple dish. The orange crust on top of the cod was half hearted giving colour but little texture, the sauce was watery and the bacon hard. It simply didn't feel at all accomplished.
From the set menu, it was baked cod with clams and smoked bacon. They didn't quite pull it off despite being a relatively simple dish. The orange crust on top of the cod was half hearted giving colour but little texture, the sauce was watery and the bacon hard. It simply didn't feel at all accomplished.
short rib burger with Monterey jack cheese, bacon slaw and chips
baked cod with clams and smoked bacon (set menu)
For dessert, we both opted for the banana sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream which was listed on the set menu and was excellent. The banana was well judged, the sponge had good density and there was lots of sticky toffee sauce. No complaints.
Banana sticky toffee pudding, Jersey clotted cream
Starters were good, the dessert was good, the mains somewhat mixed, but overall, it exceeded our expectations, though admittedly, these were relatively low. There is however a lack of attention to detail at The Narrow, where Christmas is still coming (Xmas offers have yet to be taken down), where a bad potato in the potato bread was still served up and where some food debris from the previous evening's service still sat on the chair at the next table. But it is still a fantastic location on the river, some things on the menu are actually quite good and it's normal pub prices. And, we should mention, staff were smiling and friendly, another plus. Some of the true character of the old Barley Mow has of course gone, but, and even we find ourselves surprised for saying this, there's a lot worse out there than The Narrow.
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