The Black Lion

2 South Black Lion Lane
London W6 9TJ

020 8748 2639

We started this blog five years ago to chronicle our attempt to visit as many as possible of the 100 or so places to eat in Chiswick. We got about half-way in the first year, but in recent months there have been more new openings than blog posts, including at least one each year on the corner site at the High Road end of Prebend Gardens, currently occupied by Rendezvous. Not to be outdone, a local friend has worked out there are over 40 pubs in and around W4, including along the river between Kew Bridge and Hammersmith and he has enlisted the help of some Chiswick pensioners to help him visit them all. So now there's a competitive edge, we're putting our bibs back on. 

Our challenge Venn diagram overlapped at The Black Lion on a freezing cold evening in early May. Sat under its 400-year-old chestnut tree on a midsummer evening this riverside pub can be a glorious spot but, huddled inside the marquee wrapped in the pub's emergency blankets, it felt more like the saddest apres-ski bar.

The Black Lion is a Grade II listed pub thought to date back to the 1750s, when the German George II was King. According to a plaque at the pub, formerly known as the Black Lyon, the site was originally a piggery. The pig farmer started brewing beer for himself and his friends and it proved so popular that it overtook his agricultural interests as his main occupation.

In 1803 frequent sightings of a 'ghost' occurred around Black Lion Lane and St Paul's Churchyard. A tall, white-clad figure would hang around the churchyard, springing out at women and “wrapping its spectral arms” around them. On 3 January 1804, Francis Smith, an excise officer, filled his blunderbuss with shot - and himself with ale - before firing at an unfortunate, white-clothed bricklayer, Thomas Millwood, whom he had mistaken for the ghost. Realising what he had done, he took the injured man back to the Black Lion where a doctor pronounced him dead. What happened to the original pale spectre is not known, but it is Millwood’s ghost that is now said to haunt the pub. Smith was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a year’s hard labour after it was successfully argued that he honestly believed Millwood to be a ghost.

These days the pub's location on the north bank of the Thames makes it an ideal place for watching the Boat Race, or if that sounds a bit too elitist you can book its famous skittle alley for parties. In 2017 the business was acquired by the Laine Pub Company, part of a package of six London sites it acquired for £4 million. The company has its own brewery in Adversane, Sussex, where it brews its "unfiltered, unpasteurised and uncompromising" ales, including Quiet One Table Beer, Eat More Buttons Salted Caramel Stout and Mangolicious Pale Ale. 

We'd worked up a considerable thirst on the walk down to the river and while most of our group decided to stick with good-old Fuller's, brewed 700 yards west of the beer garden, I elected for Laine's Doubloon Golden Ale, ignoring the obvious signs that it wasn't really a Golden Ale kind of evening. With the bar out of bounds, it didn't take us any longer than 15 minutes to download the 'order at table' app, enter our contact details, create a password we'll never remember, upload our payment details and order some beers. Isn't technology great?

Between the five of us we probably tallied about 300 years, significantly increasing the average age of this popular venue for twenty somethings, which seems to have had a very good lockdown, much to the annoyance of some of its neighbours along Hammersmith Terrace. In the old days, lads' nights conversation mainly revolved around beers, birds and balls, but now we're approaching our seventh decade it's more about bicycles, blood pressure and building plots. We kept with the B theme for the food - beef, beetroot and buttermilk chicken burgers, the last of which I can report was particularly good. (It takes a real man to order a beetroot, mushroom and goats cheese burger on a boys' night out.)

Purely for research purposes, I went back the following week, but it was barely any warmer. Next time I might try the corner table inside, which was once the regular spot of AP Herbert. The humourist, novelist and reformist MP lived on the Terrace and would have enjoyed a Quiet One Table Beer.

Food (for 4): £59.00
Drink (5 pints): £25.15
Total: £84.15

Tarantella

4 Elliott Road
W4 1PE

020 8987 8877


Tarantella opened in Elliott Road early in 2007, replacing the popular local That's Amore, next door to Jimmy's barbers. We'd never been before. If we've walked past it once a week since it opened, that's about 700 times without ever wondering what it's like inside. But then we went twice in little over a week, the nights before our youngest two fledglings left the nest after the long, long first lockdown.

It's a tiny space, with tightly packed tables arranged on two levels and some spilling out on the pavement when the weather is kind. It feels like a proper little Italian trattoria, the sort of place you might have visited in the 1970s, before all the chains and fancy restaurants arrived in Chiswick. 

The name of the restaurant is derived from a traditional Italian folk dance "used to capture the heart of a lover, or as a dance to cure a deadly tarantula bite" (other remedies are available). It also sells a range of Italian grocery staples including pesto, wine, flour, yeast, pasta, polenta and Italian tinned tomatoes and beans.

They've got a good but small range of typical Italian starters. On my first visit with Young Mister W4 we'd stopped off first for a beer at The Italian Job, so had worked up sufficient appetite to share a melanzana ripiena (roasted aubergine stuffed with olives, mushrooms and mozzarella with tomato sauce) and a mozzarella pomodorella (baby mozzarella marinated in sun-dried tomato pesto, wrapped in Valtellina speck and baked in the oven). The second time I went with Mrs & Miss West4urants, and we more modestly shared two between three: a bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and a burrata Pugliese (smoked creamy mozzarella with baby tomatoes, artichoke and roasted peppers).

But it's all about the pasta and pizza really. Miss W4 had the pasta of the day and Mrs W4 had spaghetti vongole (she doesn't usually eat carbs after dark but she had just walked 192 miles) plus side salad of course. The 'boy' can't resist a calzone and I must admit I tend to order pizza in Italian restaurants on the grounds that you can cook pasta at home. Neither disappointed.

If you live within walking distance of Tarantella you're lucky to have a proper local Italian on your doorstep. If you're too lazy for that and want "a slice on the side of the hot tub," then get "delivery like a g" through Snoop Dogg's favourite, Just Eat.

Food (for 3 - second visit): £65.80

Drink: £33.95

Total: £116.55

The Carpenter's Arms

91 Black Lion Lane
W6 9BG

020 8741 8386

Having relaxed the W4 rule, we took another journey into W6 on a scorching hot August evening.

(By the way, did you know that London postcodes are in alphabetical order? It seems natural that Warple Way W3 is just a stone's throw from Abinger Road W4, but Emlyn Road W12 sounds like it should be miles away, when in fact it's the next road over. Wikipedia has more for nerds (like me) but it goes: W3 Acton, W4 Chiswick, W5 Ealing, W6 Hammersmith...)

But I digress. Just over 50 years after St Peter’s Square was laid out by George Scott, The Carpenter’s Arms first opened its doors as a public house in 1871, owned by Burton-based brewer Thomas Salt & Co. The pub website reports that Chris Blackwell opened the Island Records office in the square in 1973: "We like to think that many of their roster of musicians including Bob Marley & The Wailers, Aswad, Cat Stevens, Robert Palmer, Steve Winwood, Grace Jones and U2 would have enjoyed a lock in at The Carpenter’s Arms." Maybe, although I reckon Bob and Bunny would have been down the other end of the lane at The Black (Iron) Lion (Zion), With Or Without U2.

In the mid-90s the pub changed ownership and became Le St Pierre and then The Lazy Vine, before the present owners bought the pub and returned it to its roots in 2007. 13 years on and the outside could do with a bit of re-decorating; the pub now appears to be called 'The Carpenter S Arm'. Perhaps they should just go down the Fawlty Towers route and re-arrange the letters into a new anagram each week: 'Enter Hamster's Crap'?

It's long been a favourite of the critics. Time Out named it best local restaurant in Hammersmith in 2015, AA Gill awarded it 5 stars and Times chef Lindsay Bareham finds its "boho style" her idea of "a perfect gastropub". But perhaps Harden's Guide sums it up best: "if Carlsberg made gastropubs..."

The only gripe, according to Harden contributors, is that it's a bit expensive for a pub. Which made it the perfect place to go to 'Eat Out to Help Out'. Rishi Sunak is the only Cabinet Minister to emerge from the past 5 months with his reputation enhanced, and launching 'Rishi's Dishes' was a masterstroke: 35 million meals went on the Treasury tab in the first 2 weeks alone. Younger Miss West4urants had already eaten around 0.00001% of those meals, so her elder sister was persuaded to accompany us.

Hands thoroughly sanitised, we were escorted through to the back garden, strung with lights that give it a festival vibe. Sadly that doesn't extend to the chairs, which exude more of a prison vibe. If the mission was to find chairs so uncomfortable that nobody overstays their allocated two hour window I must say it was successfully completed.

I started with what was described simply as 'gazpacho' but was made even more refreshing with the addition of melon (tomato and melon is our latest summer fad). Miss W4 went for more fruit, choosing the burrata pugliese with plums and rocket, while Mrs W4 had the torched mackerel with caponata, grilled courgette, rocket and lemon oil.

Miss W4's main course took the Instagram prize: a globe artichoke with avocado, summer leaves and orange peel (more fruit). Mrs W4 had sea bass with aubergine and I had the porchetta with crackling, apple sauce, bean puree and kale. We accompanied that with hand-cut chips and some padron peppers (has anyone ever had a really hot one or is that just a clever marketing ploy like the golden tickets hidden in Wonka Bars?)

Rishi chipped in £30 towards the bill, although as it's taken off before service charge, we felt the staff were losing out.  Disappointingly, if you top it up on the card machine the staff don't get it, so make sure you take cash if going this week. We'd definitely be returning if we didn't have so many more places still to review.

Food (for 3): £68.00

Drink: £46.90

Total: £134.26

Franco Manca

144 Chiswick High Road
W4 1PU

020 8747 4822


We've got a lot of catching up to do, and thanks to the Coronavirus we're getting plenty of time to do it. Back before Christmas (in the year 1 BC) after a few weeks in Japan feasting on seaweed, tofu and raw fish, I must admit I was craving a simple pizza and a bottle of red wine. And being a bit of a glutton, I ended up having pizza two nights running. You won't be reading a review of Zia Lucia and its delicious vegetable charcoal and wholemeal bases here, partly because it's on the Holloway Road and partly because, well, this is not a blog about where Arsenal fans eat pizza.

Sadly there isn't a branch in Chiswick (the nearest is in Blythe Road W14) so we had to make do with Franco Manca, which is (just) our W4 favourite. (It also has the cheapest margherita in Chiswick at £6.75 which, according to its most recent online menu, pips Pizza Express by a whopping £5.15 if you haven't got a voucher).

Numeric talent and a passion for economics brought Giuseppe Mascoli from Positano to London and eventually a job as assistant lecturer at the London School of Economics. But in 2008 he lit his first wood-fired oven in Brixton Market on the site of a more conventional pizzeria, Franco's; in Italian ’manca’ means 'gone’ so literally Franco Manca means 'Franco’s gone'.

The second Franco Manca was opened in Chiswick in 2009, on the site formerly occupied by Eco. The back wall features a mural by Enzo Apicella, who started designing the interiors of trattorias, including early branches of Pizza Express, in the 1960s. (According to his obituary in The Times, Apicella would eat mainly vegetarian meals, insisted on plenty of garlic and drank a glass of red wine with most meals. At home he liked to try new things, including curry pizza and porridge with pesto or parmesan. And he lived to the age of 96, so who are we to judge?)

When we visited the youngest member of the family was at uni (probably tucking in to her signature Italian dish - white pasta with butter and cheese) so there were just four of us. We shared some olives, British bresaola and baked aubergine parmigiana to start with.

We all had different pizzas: the vegan special (with butternut squash, kale and vegan cheese); the veggie special (yellow tomatoes and green peppers from Vesuvio and watercress pesto); the meat special (with lightly spiced Ventricina salami and Franco & Cantarelli grana); and a Napoletana. You can probably guess who had which. And we washed them down with a bottle of Montepulciano from Francesco Cirelli's organic farm in Abruzzo. You can probably guess who had most.

We rarely get to pudding on the blog, but purely in the interests of research we shared a fairly dense chocolate and hazelnut cake and young Mr W had an affogato, which he enjoyed to the very last drop (see picture).

40 per cent of Americans eat pizza at least once a week. I could happily join them. But on the flipside, I can at least walk to Chiswick High Road and back unaided.

Food (for 4): £53.55
Drink: £19.50
Total: £81.05

The Elder Press Cafe

3 South Black Lion Lane
W6 9TJ


020 3887 4258


Hard to believe now, but only last month Mrs WEST4URANTS was bored of W4. Today we're so desperate to go out we'd be up at 6 to be first in the queue for Costa Coffee.

We've still got at least 50 places to go in Chiswick, and there are new ones springing up all the time. We haven't been to The Post Room yet, or Waft Coffee. Covid-19 permitting there's a Five Guys coming, The Silver Birch is planning to take over the old Brew site and D Grande is hoping to become the first Tex-Mex in W4 since the Indian Chief left his reservation on the Terrace. 

I'm in the 'does what it says on the tin' school for the blog, Mrs West4 is in the 'why limit ourselves to the tin' camp. So we've compromised again, and we're going to extend to places that Chiswick residents can get to easily (when they're allowed out again).

The Elder Press is only a few hundred yards outside W4, so near that many people assume it's inside, to the obvious irritation of W6 correspondents on ChiswickW4.com ("it's actually in Hammersmith"). 

The Elder Press is the brain child of Lindsay Elder, who previously ran Skittle Alley coffee at the Black Lion pub across the road. The name is a nod to the rich printing legacy of the neighbourhood, which is marked by a number of blue plaques nearby. (If you're interested in fonts and printing, there's an interesting tale of the Doves Type font on the website, but it's not to everyone's taste, so we'll leave the font blog until month four of the lockdown).

Lindsay is highly qualified, having been a pastry chef and worked in numerous high-end restaurants. The cafe serves a range of delicious breakfast, brunch and lunch options, as well as bread and cakes to eat in or take away. Upstairs is a studio space, and there's a regular programme of yoga workshops and other wellness events.

We pass the cafe regularly on the weekend dog walk, and have often stopped for a coffee in the courtyard, where dogs are welcome. It wasn't really courtyard weather when we stopped off for brunch with the older two 'children' a few months back. 

I had the grilled cheese (on toast) with tomatoes, which is served with a gem leaf salad. It's every bit as simple as it sounds, great comfort food. Miss West4 had the mushrooms on toast with cavolo nero cooked in a garlic thyme butter, with a poached egg on top and the meat eater had the day's special, a bacon & egg croissant with spicy homemade tomato sauce.

Mrs West4 had the kimchi pancakes, which she thought were delicious. It's fair to say that kimchi divides opinion in our house, just as fat did in the residence of Mr & Mrs Jack Sprat. She swears that all things k - kombucha, kefir, kimchi, kvass - are good for the gut. Whereas my golden rule is never to eat anything beginning with ki: kimchi, kippers, kidneys (KitKat being the obvious exception that proves the rule).


Food (for 4): £38.50
Drink: £6.40
Total: £44.90

Avanti

4 Bedford Corner
South Parade
W4 1LD

020 8994 4444


We're always a little wary of restaurants where the menu is bigger than the kitchen. But with our own kitchen full of hungry twenty-somethings, and Ciara on the way, Avanti at Bedford Corner was the closest port in the storm.

Until the summer of 2007, the site was occupied by The Copper Kettle, an old-fashioned cafe that served pretty average coffee and sticky after-school tea treats. When the owner wasn't well enough to continue, it was taken over by Franck Dardenne & Patrice Cauchard, two friends born and bred in Normandy who had lived locally for over 30 years. (The name Darcau was taken from their surnames.) Offering a range of homemade sandwiches, salads and traditional French favourites, Darcau served the best food on Bedford Corner since Mrs Lad's samosas disappeared when the family newsagent closed.

Issues around parking curtailed the number of outside tables and in June 2016 (after Mrs West4urants had visited, but before she'd had a chance to write up the review) Franck and Patrice threw in the towel. The site turned into the Melody Cafe. A definition of 'melody' is a sweet or agreeable succession of sounds. Well there was nothing sweet or agreeable about the owners of this cafe. They put up a monstrous gazebo without bothering to ask for permission, spent a year arguing about it with residents and the local council, and then cleared off a little over a year later.

Avanti - which means forward in Italian - opened in March 2018. It's a Mediterranean bistro, offering tapas and classic dishes from Spain, Italy, Greece and France. Owner Hashim Gabbar Khidyer was previously involved in La Toscana, at the Goldhawk end of Chiswick High Road, and some restaurants in Ealing. Thankfully, he has no plans to put up a gazebo, although there a few outdoor tables. The inside has been completely rearranged and refurbished, it has an authentically cosy bistro feel.

We shared a few tapas to start with: croquetas de bacalao (deep-fried croquettes with "prawns and cod filling"), fabada asturiana (rich butter bean stew cooked with onion, chorizo and bacon - yes, veganuary is finally over) and some padron peppers. Of these, the peppers were easily the best, simply cooked and served. The croquettes and stew had a slight glue-like consistency that suggested they'd been re-heated rather than freshly prepared in that tiny kitchen, but that may be unfair.

We were torn between paella and pizza for main course (i.e. we couldn't agree). We ended up with pizza - a Napoli and a Prosciutto Funghi - which at £8.95 are amongst the best value pizzas in Chiswick. We chose a bottle of Cerro Anon Crianza from the unashamedly Old World wine list.

If you didn't live in Chiswick you wouldn't travel far to eat at Avanti. But we do, and we should be grateful for this friendly addition to the neighbourhood.


Food (for 2): £35.70
Drink: £32.95
Total: £75.51

The Crown

210 Chiswick High Road
W4 1PD

020 3330 7131


For the first review of the revived blog we decided to visit Chiswick's hottest opening of the year, The Crown at 210 Chiswick High Road. For 10 years the site was the home of Carvosso's, and keener followers will recall Mrs W's review from three years ago. (For less keen followers, i.e. most of you, here's a reminder). 

I'm not sure quite how Carvosso's lasted so long, I don't know anyone who went more than once, so The Crown already has the edge.  We've been twice, almost like proper restaurant reviewers.

The stucco-fronted former police station (until 1970) is the new venture of local chef Henry Harris, who made his name at Racine in Chelsea. It's the fourth site of Harcourt Inns. They had hoped to call it The Harlot (apparently inspired by Hogarth's 18th century series of prints The Harlot's Progress) but some pious locals objected, so the The Crown it is. 

According to ChiswickW4 the pub's local suppliers include Natoora, HG Walter in Barons Court and the Baker family, who have the greengrocers next to the pub. I have to take out a small mortgage if I want anything from Natoora, so I'm assuming most of the fruit and veg comes from the greengrocers next door, or profits will be waning. 

We first visited during the soft launch in January with friends who know Henry. This connection proved useful when after a long wait for our drinks HH went to get them himself. (The wait was just as long the second time. Unfortunately Henry was sat with friends at another table so we just had to wait our turn though they do need to work on that before the courtyard starts filling up in the summer.)

Our second visit was with friends from south of the river. Word of the blog has spread from W4 to SW13, and they left behind the Barnes delights of Riva and Sonny's to join us, promising not to fall off their chairs.

This time I started with the cannellini and broad bean minestrone. There were enough cannellini beans to stand a spoon up in, but their broader cousins were more scarce, and the broth was much too salty. Our guests both had the caponata and mozzarella on toast, which I'd had on our first visit, and was a much better choice. Mrs W had the chickpea tortelli (because we don't get enough chickpeas at home) and liked the taste but found the tortelli hard. Is that a thing? Hard tortelli? We weren't sure.

You may have to wait ages for drinks, but we'd barely had time to finish our starters when the main courses arrived. I had the classic Dordogne duck dish: confit with celeriac remoulade and Sarladaise potatoes, which rather boringly I'd also had on our first visit. The duck was perfectly cooked, and the potatoes wonderfully crunchy, but the remoulade felt like an after-thought and could have done with being a bit sharper (it's much better at Le Vacherin). Mrs W (and one of our guests) had the salmon with chargrilled onions, Marinda tomatoes and borage puree, which she really enjoyed. Our other guest had the whole roast coquelet with artichokes and turnip tops, which looked like a feast, though he thought his greens looked "a bit shagged out".

The wine list is genuinely interesting, apparently sourced by Mrs Harris. Lots of classics but some intriguing new finds too, from which we chose the Gaba do Xil Mencia on our first visit, a delicious Spanish red that the Harrises apparently drink at home.

All in all The Crown is a great addition to the Chiswick eating out scene. It is very much a gastro-pub, but clearly plenty of people just go in for a drink and the outside courtyard will come into its own when (and if) the sun starts shining.


Food (for 2): £53.63
Drink: £24.85

Total: £88.29