Anchor & Hope, Waterloo

I've spoken about hygge here before - the great Danish concept to which our nearest equivalent word is probably cosy, like a big wintery hug - although on that occasion I was with a tee-total and love sick Stealth and ended up drinking all the negronis and cuddling up with myself.

This time I had a dinner date with my darling wife at The Anchor and Hope, one of London's first gastropubs. An epithet that, over a decade after they opened, probably sounds like being damned with faint praise, but the Anchor and Hope blazed the trail headed by St John and the Eagle that saw stripped back British food firmly back on the map.

It also must be a leading proponent in the no bookings game, except for their Sunday lunch, when you can now reserve in advance. While it might be an ongoing frustration for some, at least you can cosy up in the 'pub bit' next door, or outside if the weather's not inclement, with a nice bottle of red while you wait for your table to be called. Which is just what we did.

The first paragraph of Matthew Fort's review - back in the early 2000s when below the line didn't exist, so no comments moaning about London-centrictism (although south of the river was barely classed as London then) - simply recited the menu, and all these years later I could happily do the same.

Warm snail and bacon salad, jerusalem artichoke soup with foie gras, whole turbot roasted in duck fat, seven hour Swaledale lamb and potato dauphinoise, suet crusted pheasant and chestnut pie, Longhorn mince and tatties, buttermilk pudding and salted caramel sauce. I would go on but I'm in danger of short-circuiting my keyboard

In the end it had to be the cassoulet for two, a bubbling earthenware dish crammed with garlicky sausage hunks, slabs of pork belly, confit duck gizzards and a leg, sticking majestically from the burnished breadcrumb and parsley speckled surface. If a picture says a thousand words then I think this one is saying oof repeatedly with a Gallic undertone.

The main reason that this got the nod above the other assorted delights on offer is it was the same dish I had on my first trip here with my uni friends one winter's day more years ago than I care to count.

Retrospectively, I find it a little strange to consider they agreed to such a rich dish, their diet at uni comprising that of most teenage girls; mostly coffee with skimmed milk and giant bags of Malteasers. Not to mention sharing with me is always fraught with danger.

If there's anything more huggable (no, of course not literally, think of the grease stains) than a wobbling array of crisp-skinned meats bobbing in a thick stew of creamy cannellini beans then please send it my way for a cuddle.

Even the gizzards were remarkably well-mannered; little avian nuggets that provided a welcome texture contrast to the unctuous pig bits and mealy beans. A green (and red) salad of bitter leaves cut a swath through the richness and lent a slightly more virtuous air to proceedings.

As if I was in need of anything more soporific after such a magisterial main, a bowl of clotted cream rice pudding crowned with a dollop of damson jam pushed me nicely into that post-dinner slump of sheer contentment.

I love nursery puddings and rice pud is right up there with the very best of them. And while normally I shy away from mixing it with fruit (after an incident at school camp as a child, enough said), the addition of sharp plum worked a treat. The glass of icy Muscat, recommended to go alongside, gilded the lily nicely.

In a surprise move, the Ewing eschewed the chocolate and hazelnut pie with cold cream (much to my chagrin) for the baked vanilla and poppy seed cheesecake with poached quince. The cheesecake struck the perfect balance between the lemony clagg (good) of the cream cheese and buttery crunch of the base which bought to mind my Nan's version - from the Hellmann's cookbook - which is very high praise indeed. Added quince is always a good thing and the suggestive slice of amber fruit added a perfumed sweetness. 

A couple of espressos later and we were ready to face the long road home. Luckily even the cold December night couldn't dent the warm glow we had inside.

Fryday Night

Having a firmly London-centric lineage (save for a Norn Iron Grandmother and, as I have recently discovered, a Pie Eater as a paternal Great-Grandfather) you're probably thinking I spent most my childhood evenings eating jellied eels whilst singing a few Chas and Dave songs around the old Joanna (I've never thought that - TE). Sadly, after I moved to the bucolic Chiltern Hills, most nights were about eating my greens followed by Neighbours and trying to avoid my physics homework (I did, briefly and badly, learn the piano, but it was all Phil Collins (heaven help us - TE) and the Beatles, not the Cockney classics).

People often rue the loss of the real London, but it still exists if you look hard enough and it's very essence, hanging in the air like chip fat, can be found through the doors of Masters Super Fish on the Waterloo Road. Beloved of cabbies, locals and tourist alike, the Formica tables, fish straight from Billingsgate and fogged up windows make you feel like you've been transplanted straight out of an Orwell novel.

I'm not sure you would have got a saucerful of shrimps in Orwell's time - although he does talk of the bigger cousins, Dublin Bay prawns, in his Defence of English Cooking. Here they are served gratis while you wait, alongside a basket of baguette and butter. Cue some noisy head-sucking from the Ewing.

Everything was perfect; a thick tranche of cod, served skin on (opposed to the skinless Northerners) was flaky and meaty (which still always seems a strange descriptor for fish); the batter at turns perfectly crisp and soggy and the mountains of fried potatoes peerless.

They also provide generous supplies of ketchup and tartare sauce - heaven for a condiment fiend like me - before bringing silver boats with sliced wallies and pickled onions to your table and asking how many you want with your dinner. That's right, endless pickles are provided table side; surely the cue to get yer selves down to queue for a fishy helping of forgotten London.

Of course man can’t live on cups of tea alone (although the English may try), so it was an auspicious omen that Bermondsey’s Bottle Shop were hosting the first night of their new Waterloo pop up, held at Love and Scandal coffee shop on Lower Marsh. 

Their Thursday/Friday night shenanigans started with four keg offerings, a cheeky little can and bottle list (also available to takeaway) and crisps sandwiches for a quid. It’s as if they had read my mind.

I started the weekend off with a Weird Beard Citra Ninja Pilsner (AKA Faceless Spreadsheet Ninja), a single hopped German pils style beer that’s clean and sweet and refreshing  but with a little kick at the end -from dry hopping with yet more Citra - to keep you on your toes; perfect Friday night thirst-slaking.

The Ewing passed up the chance to try the Punchline, a Chipotle Porter from Huddersfield's Magic Rock, plumping instead for the Ominpollo (from Sweden, and one of the only beverages imbibed over the weekend that was brewed outside the Big Smoke) Saison. This was a juicy, funky brew that the Ewing described as 'FRESH' (the caps are hers).

Crisp butties and a second round were passed up as Stealth had called to announce she was back in E&C and awaiting our arrival. As we couldn't arrive without a present (well, I could have done…) a few cans of Evil Twin Brewing’s Hipster Ale (brewed at Two Roads Brewing Co) from their takeaway fridge seemed most appropriate for the hippest girl in SE17.

Of course it wasn’t all about massive hops and a jet of CO2.  A nice dimpled pint pot of Sambrooks Wandle on cask – a classic English pale ale named after the Thames tributary that runs past the brewery - whilst snuggled up at the back of our favoured haunt, the Old Red Lion in Walworth, bookmarked  a pleasingly gentle end to a frenetic, Capital-centric weekend.