Picture of Royal Oak, SE1 4JU

Historical version 22 of Royal Oak, SE1 4JU (view current version)

  • Telephone: 020 7357 7173
  • Address: 44 Tabard Street, SE1 4JU (streetmap) (osm) (gmap) (bingmap) (streetview)
  • Opening Hours: 11:30am-11pm Mon-Fri; 11am-11pm Sat; noon-6pm Sun

Good Beer Guide pub near Borough Station. Owned by Harvey's, and so normally has the full range of Harveys beer, including the seasonals.

It has two rooms linked by a small lobby at the front door and the bar in between them serving both. Service is very friendly, as are the regulars found propped along the bar.

There are seven hand-pulls, and on a visit in September 2008, the ales were Best Bitter (£3/pint), pale (£2.80), mild (£2.70), the very excellent London Olympia Golden Ale (£3.20), and seasonals Armada (£3.20) and South Down Harvest (£3.30). The seasonals are regularly changed and others like Copperwheat and Tom Paine have also been on in the past. In September, they also had Thatcher's Heritage Cider on handpull (£3.20), as well as an extensive range of Weston's ciders on draught. You can also get bottles of the Imperial Extra Double Stout (£3.85), which at 9% is a fairly heady concoction.

The food is very good with interesting specials. It's served noon-3pm and 5pm-9:30pm Monday to Friday, noon-2:45pm and 5pm-9:30pm Saturday, and noon-5pm Sunday (roast lunch, with a vegetarian option).

Kake tried one of the specials on a Monday evening in June 2008; salmon fishcakes served with chips and salad (£8.50) photo. The fishcakes appeared to be deepfried, and didn't hold together very well, and the accompanying salad had no dressing. The tartare sauce looked and tasted home-made though, and the chips were fine. On a visit in September 2008, Ewan had what has become known as a 'heretical pie' (only partially encased) of the vegetable and stilton variety (£7.25), but it was very tasty nonetheless and served with fresh steamed vegetables which had just the right amount of butter to go down easily photo. Plenty of bowls of chips were also consumed, great value at £2 as you get quite a few of them and they are all perfectly-done chunky fries.

Can be hard to find; make sure you have a map if you've not been there before (Tabard Street is diagonally opposite Borough Station, running behind the prominent church building).

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Last visited by Ewan, Kake, Juliet, Kat and many others, 18 September 2008. Opening times and food times taken from the Harveys website, June 2007, except the Saturday times which were confirmed by Kake over the phone, August 2008.
OS X co-ord: 532554 OS Y co-ord: 179665 (Latitude: 51.499876 Longitude: -0.090093)
This is version 22 (as of 2008-09-21 17:35:38). View current version. List all versions.