An English Pub Lunch?

We were in London for a week in 2010 and other than being at Heathrow on previous trips, it was my very first time in England. Me…the English history nut!

So, what’s one of the first things you want to do on your first morning in London other than leaving our rented apartment? Going for a long walk seemed like a really good idea. It was a bit cloudy but heck this is London! Have you ever walked through Kensington Gardens during one helluva wind/rain storm?

Now that we are both soaked…Joe worse than me because he was wearing a jacket…wet pant legs, the works! Let’s find a nice English pub and have a traditional pub lunch, seated by a fire, drinking a pint and having a pie or… We asked a doorman at a hotel near Kensington Palace and he directed us to The Churchill Arms not far away. From the outside it looked just the ticket!

I just received my April 2015 issue of Bon Appetit which included an article by Lauren Collins titled “A Modern Guide to Timeless London,” a series of reviews of a few places she checked out along with photos of some of them.
And right there was a photo of the exterior of…you guessed it, The Churchill Arms!

In 2010 I was not writing this blog or I would have done a review myself. But 5 years in…I think Lauren pretty much captured what I had written in my notes.

The Churchill Arms bills itself as “the very first pub in London with a Thai restaurant”…She then goes on to say “this is better than it sounds. The atmosphere is more Blenheim than Bangkok: chamber pots, copper kettles, bulldog mugs. Both the fiery curries and the clutter serve as invigorating ripostes to a pub scene that gets more bland and interchangeable by the year.” Exactly…what the hell!

When one wants the quintessential English pub one doesn’t want Thai food…we love Thai food but this was the weirdest thing ever and we left without eating or having a beer as the whole concept struck us as being way too odd.

Bet you’re wondering where we ended up…my notes say it wasn’t wonderful!