Hope & Anchor

It’s sometimes inevitable there will be a tricky transitional period with a kitchen when a pub comes under new ownership, unfortunately it seems to be true for Brixton’s new Hope & Anchor. Though I’ve visited the Acre Lane establishment for more than enough nights out in my time and spent many a heady summer evening in its fairy lit beer garden, sampling the menu has until now eluded me. I dropped in a few weeks ago to try out the new dishes and while the menu looks great, the food didn’t quite live up to expectations.

The meal started well enough. The Ogleshield and Lincolnshire poacher croquettes with smoked tomato chutney were actually delicious and we easily could have eaten a mountain of them. We were hoping the rest would follow suit, but while the Brixton meat board of salami and chorizo was pleasant enough, it seemed a lot of the same; it could have done with one more kind of meat perhaps and a little less of each, we didn’t really feel it was worth the £15 price tag.

The buttermilk breaded chicken burger with avocado, maple bacon and Sriracha mayo was a bit of a let down; with the breadcrumbs a tad on the golden side and slightly soggier than they really should have been. The triple whammy of the Brixton’s Got Beef burger presented itself with a three patty stack worthy of an eating competition - a distracted oversight on my part and a lesson in making sure you read the menu properly… While I’m no fan of rare meat, the burgers were a bit too well done even for me, something of a commonality in both our dishes.

I’m all for giving places the benefit of the doubt and given the recent changes at Hope & Anchor I won’t be writing it off just yet. Teething problems happen, there may well be improvements already seeing as my visit was a month ago, and given its proximity to my house it’s inevitable I’ll be back again soon.