One gastropub I was dying to visit was Fox & Grapes, the place is quite near my flat in Wimbledon Village, holds a Bib Gourmand award from the Michelin guide and was selected as 26 of the top 50 Gastropub Awards. Is the typical country side pub, full of character, and immediately you can feel that something else is going on, and that's a great kitchen on the place. Opened by Chef Claude Bosi same of the two Michelin star Hibiscus, he controls the operations as executive chef while his brother Cedric is the manager.
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| The place |
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| Walk this way |
I got the visit of my cousin Roberto and his girlfriend Eliana, so decided it was a good time to go there and take them to their first gastropub experience. We got a couple pints and ordered food, for starters we share scratchings and scotch egg, the pork scratchings were really nice and crunchy, perfect to go with the pint, the wild boar scotch egg was superb, perfectly cooked, the running yolk was beautiful, and the flavour excellent.
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| Scratchings |
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| Scotch Egg |
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| Perfection |
As a main I went for the F&G burger, tomato relish and Blackstick blue cheese.
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| Burger time |
The verdict, perfectly cooked the meat, medium rare, with a smoky flavour from the coal josper oven, nice melting blue cheese, the relish was excellent, the home made mayo quite good, nicely balanced, the glazes brioche bun was spot on
The damage, 14.5 quid for the burger with fries
The conclusion, beautiful burger, top in the city, I love the fact that it comes from a gastropub, spot on, the fries were crunchy and soft inside, just brilliant. I will give them almost a perfect score in my scale 9 for my local pub
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| Close up |
Roberto got the burger as well, Eliana went for something more traditional Fish and Chips, I had a bite and they were brilliant, perfectly battered, the fish cooked to perfection as well. As side we add some bubble and squeak, which was nice, and the triple cooked chips, surprisingly they weren't as good as the fries.
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| Fish and Chips |
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| Eliana ready |
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| Bubble |
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| Chips |
For dessert we share a pistachio crème brulee and chocolate shortbread, perfect ending for a lovely diner.
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| Desert |
Elaine: The Korean women were talking about me. I think they were calling me a dog
Jerry: How would you know? You don't speak Korean
Elaine: Because this woman came in with a dog and Ruby called the dog the same word they used when they were pointing at me, “ge ge ge”
Kramer: You know, maybe in Korean dog isn't an insult. Could be like the word fox to us. Oh, she's a DOG!
Fox and Grapes
T: 020 8619 1300
Gastropub
Approx Damage: £40pp
Area: Wimbledon
Borough: Merton
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