Restaurant Deals

Gastropub

Japanese Cuisine

Following an extensive refurbishment in late May 2014, this historic 14th century Thames-side pub in Chiswick re-opened as The City Barge, a welcoming bar with a large open kitchen, dining room, and enviable outside space, right by the river. Though it attracts a fair few tourists and walkers, it retains the atmosphere of a genuine local's pub - probably because it's the last of three popular pubs on the Strand-on-the-Green path if you're walking down from Kew Bridge station. Inside original period features include Victorian panelling and three open fires, and a reclaimed bar is coupled with quirky touches - a stuffed bird here, a metre-long Thames barge there. Drinks vary from regularly changed hand-pulled local ales and ciders, to wines by the glass and carafe as well as Prosecco on tap. Food is a cut above your average pub grub thanks to head chef, Pat Lynch (who has come from Bentley's, and Scotts), who oversees a menu based on seasonal British ingredients including fresh British seafood, brought in daily from Billingsgate Market. Dishes include Oxtail cottage pie and summer greens, and seafood burgers made from whole soft shell 'crabacado' burger with den miso mayonnaise. But the best bit is the location - the restaurant overlooks the river and has a wonderful fifty cover outside space which extends down to the Thames towpath; the perfect place to sit out on a deck chair with a Pimm's or a pint, or cosy up with a hot toddy by the wood-burning stove.