The Rosendale
Address: 65 Rosendale Road, London SE21
Telephone: 020 8670 0812
Meal For Two, including wine and service: £100
My friend Mike had not been to the Rosendale since it became a chocolate-leather-banquette gastropub. He used to watch the big-screen footie here and it held too many memories for him, both bitter and sweet, to countenance re-entering just for a taste of their home-smoked eel. I hadn't been for a different reason: it is so close to where I live that I suspected readers elsewhere in the country - Camberwell, say, or Clapham - would accuse me of gross laziness if I dedicated this space to it. But then Time Out named it best gastropub in its restaurant and bar awards and finally I had an excuse for some gross laziness. What I'm trying to tell you is that I went in spite of the fact it is round the corner, not because of that. This is obviously a lie, but you like me enough to let it ride, I'm sure. The Rosendale represents a lot of things, both good and bad, about the current drift of the gastropub movement. On the downside, the renovation of an old boozer like this genuinely does alienate a previous clientele - people like my friend Mike - who saw the old version as the hub of a certain type of community. I mention this out of journalistic duty, not because I actually care. Never did do the old boozer thing. A sticky pint of bitter, the brain-crushing glow of a 50in telly and the company of 120 other men? I'd rather stay in and give myself a Brazilian.
I'm more intrigued by the other aspect of the Rosendale, which is the recognition by spirited restaurateurs that the suburbs are full of people with money and a modicum of good taste who will happily pay for something a little more ambitious than one of those Brakes gastropub menus which says 'Some dishes may contain nuts' because the owners have bought everything in ready-made and haven't a clue how it was prepared. The Rosendale has ambition, which is both its virtue and its vice. The virtue is most keenly represented by the wine list. (When I eventually check into the Priory you will look back and say it started here.) The list could bitch slap most of what's on offer in central London not merely on range - it is a small novel - but on price. Of the few hundred bins, around 130 are pitched at £30 or less, with loads by the glass or half-bottle.
To find a list like this, which I usually associate with the sort of dining rooms that members of Opus Dei might appreciate - all cloistered silence and hidden pain - in a place like this is also refreshing. The Rosendale has massive high ceilings and a naturally airy feel, cleverly divided in the restaurant section by those banquettes. The night we were there it buzzed with the happy sound of Dulwich residents who couldn't quite believe their luck.
The vice lies in the food. Don't get me wrong. It is not bad. Some of it is very good. They do a lot of the basics themselves, like making great bread and butter and smoking their own fish. One of the star dishes was solid slabs of their own smoked salmon and eel, with anchovy mayonnaise and cubes of an apple jelly. It couldn't have been improved upon. But elsewhere there is a tendency towards overelaboration, to prissiness, perhaps to justify prices - pounds 6-pounds 8 for starters, mid-teens for mains. My starter read beautifully. I really did like the sound of Label Rouge boudin blanc - a chicken mousse sausage - with pancetta, deep-fried poached egg, baby leek and red pepper. So that's breakfast for dinner then. Except the pancetta came un-crisped and wrapped around the boudin blanc, and the deep-frying of the egg seemed a pointless affectation.
I had similar doubts about my main, an oxtail pie. Get the pie right and it needs no other adornment. Here it came perched on top of a pile of passable ratatouille as if it were a boulder about to tumble down a mountainside. I wanted to keep the good oxtail separate from the mediocre vegetables, but it was a hard ask. A pile of over-seasoned mash didn't help. This was a mildly dysfunctional plate of food, which is a problem at £19.
Other things were better. A fillet of spiced ostrich, a meat that is usually as tough and flavourless as a pair of old jodhpurs, had been prepared with sensitivity and skill. We also liked a strawberry parfait to finish and a plate of three chocolate mousses, representing dark, milk and white. So, lots of good stuff. The problem is that when the bill at a local joint tops the ton, questions start to be asked. We - by which I mean I - expect consistency, and the best way to deliver this is through simplicity. I think the Rosendale has the ability to achieve that, but it's not there yet.
