The Troubadour (Bar, Restaurant)

The Troubadour’s owners - charming Susie & husband - are a little bit Branson. They’re not content with offering just a singular type of service. Their aims are high, fingers-in-all-pies high, and the eccentric curiosities they’ve built are Virgin on the fanciful. The Troubadour is a towering bohemian monolith held together by the glue of time. It’s purpose? To undo the tangled web of frustrated London life that barks and breeds outside its door.

It’s historical. Having been born in the 1950s, it slowly leeched into the neighbouring commercial spaces at the expense, the story goes, of a Pizza Express; Beatnik Academicals - 1, Pizza Athletic - 0. The inner cells of The Troubadour are festooned with the minutiae of the past, the objet d’art of forgotten souls: a wonky tennis racket, an injured pot, a battered wall sign, a farmer’s erstwhile champion plough. Musicians, understandably, have long been enamoured with its ramshackle posturing, many even going so far as to use The Troubadour as the backdrop for their album covers (some of which can be seen mounted on the walls).

Yet, what was once just a simple bar is now a multifarious beast. Its faces are motley, and its appeal very tangible. There’s Troubadour the wine shop, proffering chiefly boutique vintages and a subterranean function bar for locals (all reminiscent of Mr Lawrence in Brockley). There’s Troubadour the cafe, boasting six street-set tables predominantly taken by smokers judging the world as it saunters by. There’s Troubadour the boutique hotel, provider of one rock star apartment at the apex of the complex. There’s Troubadour the art gallery, which is often also utilised for yoga and very important meetings (squeezable Marmite was apparently invented there).

There’s also Troubadour the club; an underground domain where the ghosts of legends such as Hendrix, Dylan, Mitchell, and Doherty linger in the shadows. They've all played here because, let’s face it, The Troubadour has been in existence since well before sound was even invented. It’s not unknown for the odd poetry reading to break out either, so emergency soliloquies are best kept at close range.

Myself and guest were quite taken with the club. We didn’t feel like we wanted to run off to Gretna Green with it, but it did convince us that Planet Earth is not shy and it does like to make friends. The private caves seats beneath the pavement, the alacritous table service, the slightly obstructed and subsequent inquisitive viewing of the stage where the double bass comes out and the banjo is probably not far behind; these all combine to help coax our languidly pleasured state. That, and the fact that the lead singer wore a tweed hat. Utterly awesome, regardless of how well they played (actually very well, to be honest. And I say that despite being tickled by the 6.5% Troubadour beer, a distant Belgian cousin of the venue, given right to adobe here in Earl’s Court).

But forget everything I’ve just said. If there need be just a singular reason for visiting The Troubadour, then it simply has to be the verdant garden. Easily one of the best al fresco dining areas in London for many good reasons: the alluring scent of honeysuckle that (mostly) manages to break through the haze of smokers’ puff (they’re everywhere); the vines; the foliage; the way in which everything seems to climb; the condiments housed in a homely bird feeder; the striped tabby cat that jumps out of a tree and bounds over the fence; the contemplative view of the brick and bright blue London sky (it exists); the over 30s in the afternoon; the under 30s later in the evening; the generous serve of peanut, pumpkin and chilli dip; the 2009 Castillo Del Moro Spanish Sauvignon Blanc; the delicious marinated beef salad (despite lacking in a tomato or two and not properly washed); the marriage of simplicity between lamb, rosemary and pasta; the proper banofee pie with mahooooosive biscuit base; the twinkling of the lights when the gloaming sets in (or are those fairies?). My two pieces of advice: two courses are plenty, and arrive before 7pm if you want such luxuries as sitting down.

So there you have it. The Troubador is a little bit Branson, only Rich in many other ways. Next stop: The Troubadour intergalactic commercial space flights. Wahhoooooo!
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