"Worth crossing the street for" is usually considered a recommendation. With our old local we always used to cross the road to avoid having to walk past all the crusties and junkies and addled unsavouries that used to spill out onto the street through its battered doors.
The official name has always been the King William. To the neighbours, it's affectionately (or not) called the King Billy. And still, to those who remember, it's referred to as the Kaizer Bill, the pseudonym it was given in a Guardian article that caused considerable consternation and controversy in the area...
But that was then. Now it's a gastropub.
Not one of those fancy places — though quite a lot of people do come in from the shires 'cause they've heard it's so good — but just a good comfortable place to hang out and have a pint. And to have some good modern British cooking.
We've been there a few times since its rebirth and always enjoyed it, sitting in the snug little front bar with its large Victorian windows (just once we ate in the dining room upstairs but found the ceilings rather too low and claustrophobic). And most especially sitting on the bench in that curving window looking out onto the side street.
The other day we dropped in for a pint of whatever the guest ale might be — it turned out to be Dorset Gold — and then we saw the blackboard with the "bar snacks" of the day, and promptly got hungry. So we ordered three starters just to tide us over on the way back to the house.
Mussels steamed in cider with plenty of rich creamy sauce, which came with triple-cooked chips (ie first boiled, then deep fried and lastly crisped in the oven)...
... a lovely mousse-light chicken liver parfait, with pear chutney and slices of crispy browned bread (Bertinet. of course) ...
… and seared scallops on black pudding with a purée of Jerusalem artichoke.
Good ingredients cooked with care but not tarted up. Which nicely sums up the whole feel of the reincarnated King Billy. It's been done up just the right amount — clean but not too tidy, and with plenty of patina left and a comfortable assemblage of unmatching furniture. And friendly too, these days.
One thing that catches the eye — literally — as you come in: the array of old concave mirrors on the wall in front of the door. It's unusual, and certainly not traditional. I think that, intended or not, it's a feng shui thing. Reflecting back out again all the old malevolent spirits of that grungy crusty past.
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