New Restaurant Review: The Tommyfield

Perhaps the word “new” is stretching it a little here. Longstanding Kennington pub The White Hart shut for all of about two weeks before re-opening under a new alias as The Tommyfield. Apparently, The White Hart was too common a name and the pub lacked identity. The new, suitably obscure name comes from the first British chip shop which opened almost exactly 150 years ago in Oldham.

The inside’s new as well, with wall-hugging benches and multi-level seating creating a slicker, cooler look much more in line with The Avalon and The Stonhouse, brothers in the Renaissance Pubs group. With talk of cocktails and a new late night licence (which not all the locals are happy about) all the signs pointed towards another pub falling into the trap of bar-dom. Having just eaten there, though, we can confirm that this is not the case. In fact, with seasonal British food, local ale (Sambrook’s in Battersea) and chatty staff; The Tommyfield is everything a pub should be.

We like the way that there’s a blackboard with fish, grill and pies of the day and we still can’t get over just how good our British Meat Board starter was. £7 gets a pork terrine, a sausage roll, half a scotch egg, a couple of hunks of caerphilly, chunky piccalilli, onion chutney and some bread. It’s all homemade but the cheese we’re told, but we figured we couldn’t hear any mooing. And given the number of (very well cooked) steaks going around, poor Daisy wouldn’t stand a chance...

The Tommyfield is at 185 Kennington Lane, SE11 4EZ and until their official launch next week, it’s 50% of all food. See more at www.thetommyfield.co.uk or follow @tommyfield.