The Masons Arms, Battersea Park Road, SW8 4BT

Battersea is a bit short of everything really, it’s like a wasteland compared with North London. Since I moved here I’ve suddenly gone all middle aged. It’s all Sunday Roasts and Jazz territory. I do try and sound less negative but it creeps up on me.

Pub and bar density isn’t great, attempting a pub crawl would be a short but expensive exercise. Everywhere seems to look the same, in an eerily Stepford pub fashion. The Masons Arms is the prototype for this: a sizable bar and kitchen opposite Battersea Park train station with a gastropub menu and a small outside terrace. So far so good, but expensive, almost eye wateringly expensive in fact. It would seem they may not have realised that this isn’t the Kings Road. Averaging about £14 per main course is a little steep for pub food, even if it is slightly better than average pub food. Sausage and mash shouldn’t cost more than a tenner really now should it? Or have I just got a bit old?
They insist on charging the best part of £6 for a glass of wine. Soft drinks are pricey too.

Finance and budgetary concerns aside, it does have some good points. As a place to sit on giant sofas on a winters night by the fire and drink with friends the Masons scores well. The fish cakes are amongst the best pub fish cakes, I’m an experienced fish cake eater I should know. Occasionally on Friday night lots of people cram in (where they all come from I’ve quite figured out) and a DJ appears, it almost could be described as lively.

But no, these are good things indeed, but hardly too much to ask for. It’s almost as if the licensing department at Wandsworth Council have a template which gets issued to any prospective landlord, “comply with this please or no go”. The Lighthouse, the Price Albert, The Prince of Wales etc etc. They are all the same. I can’t even remember which one is which.

There is a boring homogeneity in this part of London which I don’t see elsewhere. London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world so why is this little patch of South London so uniform? Can we do something different soon please?