Lord’s Tavern

Lord’s Cricket Ground is one of the most firmly established sporting arenas, not just in the city, not just in the country but in the whole world. It is routinely described as the home of cricket, a bastion of Englishness that is also happy to celebrate the achievements of foreigners who have played there. Walk past the ground and you will see huge posters commemorating the achievements of Daniel Vettori and Graeme Smith of New Zealand and South Africa respectively.

It is a magnificent piece of architecture with so much history imbued within the grounds. It is a place where W.G. Grace, Viv Richards and Glenn McGrath have all had their finest hours, a true theatre of the sporting world. But as anyone who has ever travelled to the ground will tell you, boy is it a bitch to get to.

With the underground, do you go to St. John’s Wood, Marylebone or Baker Street? Well wherever you arrive, you’re faced with a long walk to get to the ground. Maybe that’s London bias talking, the very indignity that one should have to walk for twenty minutes to get anywhere after paying inflated ticket prices to get within the same postcode.

The reason why I bring this up is because Lord’s have a restaurant on-site, The Lord’s Tavern. And with summer coming it is aiming to posit itself as a place to go to, a place to enjoy good food.

To test this premise out, a friend and I dropped in on a Tuesday evening. Luckily we were just in advance of T20 season and all that remained were soused old boys revelling in a post-benefit haze.

My friend and I started off with the chicken liver parfait and fishcakes respectively. The smoked salmon and leek fishcakes were sturdy and enjoyable whilst my friend’s parfait had a pleasing delicacy.

For main, my friend plumped for the very English fish and chips, deep fried Haddock in Marston’s beer batter with hand-cut chips, mushy peas and tartare sauce. As I was making my selection, one item jumped off the menu; the Lord’s Tavern Burger. I wondered what W.G. Grace would make of such an unEnglish item. Given the great man’s weight, it would probably have been “That looks scrumptious!” and this was enough to tempt me.

The burger itself had some delightful meat and although it was a little struggle to keep the contents altogether, I’m sure Mr. Grace would have approved.

For dessert, I chose the Lord’s Tavern Summer Pudding whilst my friend went for the sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream. Both were enjoyable and rounded off a meal which was very good value.

The Lord’s Tavern does not have the food or the atmosphere to make it a first class restaurant but if you’re in the area, you’d be advised to drop in for a bite.