Hill, Greenwichback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
I would think twice about eating at this pub. It is trying to be a top class restaurant... but they cant cook for toffee.
The starters were amateurish and the mains were very poorly cooked. My fish and chips for example... the fish was undercooked, the batter was pale, greasy and soggy. I think that they must have run out of chips because they served frozen wedges instead! My friends choices were shocking too... Ribeye Steak? it was so thinly cut that it could have been anything. The risotto was basmati rice swimming in stock... to top it all off the service was poor. The waitress threw our plates towards us with such force she actually scared us all in to paying the shocking 12.5 % service charge!
Basically if you have more money than taste this is the pub for you.
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Quite a revelation in a good area surprisingly deplete of good dining experiences. Went here for the first time tonight (Sunday evening - even more of a difficult gatronomic day in this area!) upon recommendation from the superb governor of the Ashburnham Arms - best pub in the area. The Hill is a thoroughly enjoyable experience - good food, good wine, good service, good decor with no pretentions - and reasonable prices. Easily the best dining experience we have had in this area - we look forward to returning. This is not really a pub but a very good restaurant in an area where we have for some time now been looking for somewhere good to dine (especially on a Sunday evening).
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I stopped eating at this pub a few months ago as I felt the food was mediocre and the service poor at best. I gave it another try today and will not be returning. The service was painfully slow and I got the feeling that the staff just didn't give a damn whether we enjoyed our meal or not. We didn't bother with pudding or coffee as the service was so slow. The food was mediocre - I had fish and chips the chips were caked in salt and soggy as a result of being served underneath the fish. A service charge of a staggering 12.5% was automatically added to my bill and expected (despite me pointing out that I thought the service had been atrocious).
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Nice restaurant bit, but beer average and range limited (Adnams Best only). Food nice but nothing special.
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Expensive Beer,Nice Pub,7/10
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£6.60 for two pints? No thanks - we're off to the Prince Albert...
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Great gastro style bar hidden around the back of Greenwich. Great food and a great atmosphere.......West End food at reasonable prices!!
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This pub (The Barley Mow) was a good locals pub when we moved here 11 years ago but then the druggies took it over and you were more like to get offered the white powdered variety of coke than the real thing- and you could play spot the customer as a result- I am amazed it did not close down before it did. Total makeover this year, great, reasonable value food, good wine, decent beer, nice decked garden and friendly helpful staff. Probably the best pub in Greenwich to eat at the moment...if only they would put Timothy Taylor's Landlord on draught it would be perfect !
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After several weeks of redecoration the Barley Mow has now been transformed into the latest gastro-pub to arrive in the Greenwich area and has been given a new name as well; The Hill.
The bar area has been cut down to half it's original size, it now has the usual selection of standard pub beers, cider, and Adnams for the real ale drinkers. There doesn't appear to be much in the way of anything else except for a huge selection of wines. The prices are quite steep for the area, a pint will cost you upwards of £3.
The pool table and darts area has gone, as has the traditional pub decor. It's been replaced with retaurant seating and oil paintings for sale adorned on the walls. The garden has been given a full makeover as well, wood decking along with solid wooden chairs and tables, a built in BBQ and various tasteful potted plants give the garden a vague oriental feel.
The food is good if a little expensive, the manager assured us that as they were just starting they were still in a learning phase and offered my girlfriend a reduction on her meal. The bar and restaurant staff all seemed to be very friendly and helpful.
Essentially this pub now falls between local restaurants like Inside and pubs like The Union - somewhere to go for a meal but aimed at the crowd with a larger disposable income. I doubt they'll be getting many regulars from the Royal Hill council estate over the road.
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Barley Mow RIP
Now reopened as "The Hill" - yet another pub bites the dust to become a bar-gastro-experience...
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If you didn't know better, The Barley Mow is a daunting pub to enter, as first impressions cause a presumption that the regulars are bound to be hostile to strangers. This feeling is compounded by a doodle on the blackboard at the rear of the pub, in a raised games area, that depicts a bloke missing part of his head and blood dripping from his chin. Fortunately, this presumption is unfounded, as the drinkers appear friendly.
Slightly further up from the several tourist pubs near the bottom of Royal Hill, The Barley Mow is definitely not aimed at visitors. Outsiders are welcomed and made to feel at home, but this is definitely a 'locals' pub.
The pub has quite a modern feel, with carpeted floors, various levels, a 'dancefloor' and stools along the bar. Squeezing through the regulars to get served by barmaid Gina Ward from TV's Heartbeat can be intimidating, but at least the barmaid in The Barley Mow doesn't have a scouse accent like the one behind the bar of the Aidensfield Arms. The walls are modern, but there are a few wooden sections that have paintwork like a Wild West theme-pub.
The raised sports area, up several steps at the rear of the pub, contains a dartboard, pool table and the aforementioned blackboard that is covered in doodles. Other forms of entertainment include the Jukebox, on which the regulars know the number of every track off by heart. Jazz and other forms of live entertainment are provided at The Barley Mow, but this could be in the form of an aged bloke playing cabaret on a keyboard - Ronan Keating songs and suchlike.
There is a large garden at the rear of the pub, but the garden walls are painted brilliant white to ensure sitting in the garden in the sun is a dazzling experience. Afternoon barbeques are a regular occurrence throughout the summer, and non-regulars are invited to participate and offered free food.
A great pub though, and one that just happens to be my local.
Alexander - 19 Mar 2004 16:09 |
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