Hanging out with trendy youth with a beer and a pizza at The Chandos – Brockley
BY BILL LACY
A blow for pubs this week with the news that restrictions will continue for another month, and perhaps longer.
This is such an uncertain period for pubs and every week without full trade hurts.
Hopefully the Euros will provide a much-needed boost in the meantime.
At the time of writing, the spirit of 96 is very much in the air. I like pubs where the atmosphere comes from conversation rather than the umdrum from the TV.
But there are few experiences to match the thrilling collective energy of watching England in a busy pub.
One pub showcasing the Euros is The Chandos in Brockley.
The only other pub by that name I had come across is the vast Samuel Smith’s pub in Charing Cross, busy, touristy, fairly basic and stocked with one brewery’s beer.
The lesser-known Chandos is a different experience. The outside is slightly misleading, and I stepped in to what I thought would be a traditional pub, similar to one I had just been to down the road.
It had been transformed by Frontier pubs into a trendy and youthful oasis of craft beer and pizza.
Why is it always pizza? Strangely, I could actually tell it didn’t used to be like this, as if memory still lingered in the air.
I was led out into a small but rather charming garden, with some seats secluded from the elements.
My mind was blown by the technology of ordering.
Having just been to a pub where I waved a fiver at the barman to get a drink, here I used a special disc fixed to the table that immediately brought the pub’s menu up on my phone.
The Chandos is excellent for craft beer, with several top-quality choices. I ended up staying later than I thought I would, the additional but unnecessary Mothership Codebreaker, a superb Double England IPA at 8%, justified as a “night cap”.
Despite my instincts and predeliction for traditional boozers, I found myself liking this place.
There’s room for all sorts of pubs in my pub guide.
The Chandos 56 Brockley Rise, Brockley SE23 1LN
