The Manor Arms (Bar, Restaurant)

Best for: great drinks; big ol' plates of fantastic food; and a bill suitable for financiers and non-financiers alike.

Great: hearty, feel-good, traditional British fare.

As a boy, I used to get mugged. A lot. I was a pretty easy target truth be told. Skinny boys with middle-partings and glasses don't exactly strike fear into the hearts of would-be assailants. Moreover, throw in a truly enormous school-blazer and trousers never quite long enough to maintain pace with legs experiencing years of exponential growth, and you have the look of the classic victim. If I'd only had the courage, I might well have mugged myself too.

The purpose of this emotional outpouring is to inform you that a mainstay of my youth, and particularly of my mugging years (victim, rarely perpetrator), was an area situated half-way between my house and my school, called Streatham. These days we're old pals, Streatham and I, although I'll readily admit that we see each other less often than we should. In fact, ironically enough, I really only return to visit the opticians; the arrangement I have is quite simple: they provide me with contact lenses, and I enjoy a safe journey home.

It was with some surprise, therefore, that I recently began hearing rumours of a new restaurant in Streatham, The Manor Arms, garnering some highly favourable reviews. My surprise was to peak at bemusement when I learnt of the restaurant's precise location, standing, as it does, in the stead of a former-pub of notorious ill-repute. To illustrate with a tale of dubious reliability, it was at this pub that a good friend of mine claims to have been served by a woman who, returning from an altercation with a regular, was bleeding profusely from her face. Now this tale may well be apocryphal, and, come to think of it, possibly about an entirely different pub altogether, but it serves my point nicely: this was not a salubrious joint, and it was not in a salubrious area.

Mumblings of such radical change, therefore, naturally piqued my curiosity, and it was with this in mind that I returned to Streatham last week, regardless of the fact that at that moment in time I was in possession of a full stock of contact lenses. I was not to be disappointed. I discovered an exceptional restaurant that is, in spite of a single broken window-pane that alluded to a former life, one of South London's hidden gems.

The restaurant itself is unpretentious and warm, decorated in a simple and tasteful manner, and successfully pairing a sense of fine-dining with believable pub-ness. Drinkers and eaters intermingle, and there is an enormous amount on offer for both parties. For the drinkers, The Manor Arms boasts a strong array of beers, on-tap and in-bottle, and a phenomenal wine-list: their Lebanese wines, in particular, are a surprise and a treat. It is the food here, however, that really sets this restaurant apart. Sourced in near-entirety from within the UK, this is the kind of place that reminds those of us still in need of reminding that traditional British food can be truly exceptional.

The mains are the real attraction here, offering portions of reassuring quantity, and quality that extends far beyond plain reassurance. The pork fillet was a particular favourite, for instance, offering just the right amount of richness and intensity of flavour. Sweet-teeth will be equally satisfied here too. I was personally blown-away by the almond financier, all soft and spongy and sweet and salty. It also introduced me to an entirely new meaning for the word 'financier', which I had heretofore thought could only refer to Swiss men who convert laundered cash into inedible Toblerone bars, and then hide it in the underground vaults at Gringotts.

My return home from The Manor Arms thus left me sated, and yet chastened. It appears that I have been neglecting Streatham, an old friend, and inadvertently relegated it to little more than a mere contact-lens dispenser. In my absence something has been happening, the winds of change and all that, and at the heart of this is the unexpected, unpretentious, but immensely satisfying Manor Arms, surely one of the best restaurants south of the river. Thus, my final words of advice are simple: part your hair down the middle, find some old glasses, and head on down. This place is great.
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