Bar Room Bar in Wanstead

Bar Room Bar in Wanstead Hot

Pub and Bar Reviews Redbridge

Editor's rating

3.1

out of 5

Reviewed by:

Chris
#1 Reviewer
Saturday, 08 September 2007

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33-34, High Street, Wanstead, London, E11 2AA

Editor review : Bar Room Bar, Wanstead Review

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful


Overall rating		3.1
Pride		2.0
Gluttony		5.0
Sloth		2.0
Greed		4.0
Lust		2.0
Wrath		5.0
Envy		2.0

about these ratings >>

It’s become increasingly common over the last few years for drinking establishments to offer food. Whether it be to encourage the punters to stay longer, or to appear to be combating binge drinking problems, even many of the small old backstreet boozers in the city now offer a menu of food for a portion of the day. What is rare, however, is for this food to stand on it's own when pitted against primarily eating establishments. Bar Room Bar in Wanstead manages to do just that, though.

Situated on the attractive high street, just a few minutes walk from the tube station, BRB is part of one of the lesser known chains of gastropubs. Unlike most other chains though BRB succeed in cutting down it's menu so they can specialise in one type of food, namely pizza. As the huge banner outside the front of the bar quite blatantly makes apparent, the pizzas here are 2 for the price of 1, all day, every day.

On ordering our pizzas, there was at first a little mix-up over which pizzas they could currently make, and which they didn’t have the required ingredients for. The chef seems very competent though and managed to make several pizzas concurrently. The production of the pizzas could be seen clearly from our table, owing to the open area to the kitchen and oven. This openness helps make one far more content that the place has nothing to hide in regard to their food.

Following a mix-up where by the bar maid gave the wrong pizzas to the wrong people, proclaiming that they were different pizzas altogether, we ate, and it was enjoyable. The thin based pizzas are as well produced, tasty, and filling as in any dedicated pizzeria I'd expect to stumble upon, and at the price of less than eight pounds for two, the food is certainly not an area of BRB that can be sniffed at.

I've used the word “pizza” too many times thus far in this review, so will now quickly move on to the other aspects of the bar. The space is a lot smaller than I’d imagined after visiting other pubs in the chain. The long glass shop-front scattered with outdoor chairs and tables intended for smokers convey the impression that the bar will be spacey once inside. As it stands, the pub doesn't go back much further than it is wide, making it a fat rectangle shape. This space has been used well though, with seating and tables filling the single large open space, and a bar pretty much the length of one of the walls. The internal aesthetics sadly leave a lot to be desired. The place doesn't look bad, it's just not very well-maintained. Besides the large flat screen TVs showing digital sports channels, you’d be forgiven for thinking this place was decorated ten years ago, then left to deteriorate at it's own digression.

The toilets are where this allowed deterioration is most apparent. The gents is small, reminiscent of an old South London local. It looks like they tried to do something with the walls, but just gave up. What makes this crude paint job worse is the graffiti scratched into it, some very racially offensive, but nonetheless left there for x amount of time by the management. I’ve heard reports that the ladies room in BRB is no merrier.

The bar staff first started out friendly, but appeared to dislike the idea of having people in the pub. Our visit was on a Friday night, the place was less than half packed (as in less than half of the tables were seated at), and the two barmaids were complaining among themselves how busy the venue was. I did wonder why the place was so empty at this time of the week, and soon found the probable reason. I discovered that my first choice of drink was currently off. After changing my order, I discovered that my second choice was also off. Not only were the beers badly-stocked, the bar did not currently hold the ingredients to make most of the drinks on it's non-alcoholic cocktails list.

All aside, BRB is not a place you'd spend much time in, more a place that can be used as a budget before-drinking restaurant of sorts. It's just sad that the place can't exceed in other aspects in the same way as it does with it's food.

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