Bars & Pubs

By Guy Dimond

Rennaissance Pubs, the firm in charge at Cinnamon Cay and the nearby Abbeville, has some experience at turning ailing pubs into going concerns. The Stonhouse is its latest project: recently opened and still squeaky clean, but still very much a pub despite the pristine wooden floors and new, custom-made shelving behind the bar.

The look is a mish-mash partly inspired by the Ford Cortina years, with buttoned, brown leather upholstery and new brick walls; you half expect to find Carter and Regan from 'The Sweeney' playing darts with an old lag.

The drinks list is utterly contemporary though, with Timothy Taylor Landlord and Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter, where in a polo-neck-and-platform-shoe reverie you might have expected Watney's Red Barrel. Both these excellent cask-conditioned ales were in tip-top condition. The bar is well-stocked with top spirit brands and there are decent wines by the glass - but only by the 250ml glass, which is one-third of a bottle. A standard glass size is half this amount, so be warned that your hangover might also arrive supersized.

The menu returns to the retro feel with dishes such as moules marinière, prawn cocktail and banoffee pie. Our Cornish crab cake was fresh and good quality, you could taste the brown meat; it was simple, honest food and the accompanying mayonnaise and lemon gave the dish clear and distinct flavours. Onglet - French cut of beef - was correctly cooked, but the accompanying bearnaise sauce was very salty. We thought this was an anomaly, but the pumpkin ravioli also had the same problem.

At the next table, a waiter tried to procure a credit card as security from a group of four women diners right in the middle of their main course. Not suprisingly, they considered this rather rude and so told him to bog off. Now that's something you wouldn't have seen in the 1970s.

Time Out London Issue 1908: March 14-20 2007