The Yacht

A pleasant modern pub overlooking the River, I prefer the Yacht in winter to summer mainly because I find it a little frustrating that there's no balcony onto the Thames, though there are large picture windows which do nicely enough on a less than clement day.

It claims, depending on which side of the sandwich board outside you are standing on, to either be "The last pub in the West" or "The first pub in the West." Either way it's not a bad boozer - friendly staff, loud carpet and louder fruit machines a traditional style pub of the classic wooden-Windsor-chairs-around-solid-varnished-tables variety.

The bar food is excellent - with a good choice of homebaked pies and other dishes, but the fish and chips are really very good indeed.

Now. Two pubs next door to each other, the Yacht and The Trafalgar, both claim to have "the best fish and chips on the river" both with "secret" beer batter recipes. It seemed suspicious - did they share a kitchen or something? I asked the barmaid. She told me that there's a long-standing rivalry between the two and the secret recipe for each is different. More research was needed ...

After exhaustive tests, I have concluded that my personal favourite is that of the Yacht. The batter is crisp and fresh and the chips - none of your pallid French fries nonsense here - slyly invite return visits to your neighbour's plate until you've finished theirs as well as your own. The odd bone is hardly a crime and is amply made up for by the generous portion of mushy peas included. All in all, a good solid pub lunch, and without the baggage that the Greenwich Inc chain (which owns the Trafalgar among others) brings with it. But all that on another day, eh...