Stars of South East London!

A dish from our most recent lunch at the newly starred Kerfield Arms

It’s Michelin week and it’s been a good one for our corner of London!

There were a couple of new Bib Gourmands announced, with Kruk and Lai Rai, both in Peckham, being added to the list of great value places serving excellent food!

We’ve been keen to try Kruk for ages given our enthusiasm for Thai food, and all the feedback we’ve heard has been excellent, so it’s definitely being bumped up the list. Vietnamese spot Lai Rai was not on our radar at all, which now feels like a glaring omission, so we’ll be sure to check that out in the months ahead too and no doubt write about it here…

One place we certainly can’t be accused of ignoring is The Kerfield Arms in Camberwell, which we’ve raved about here multiple times before and which was awarded a Michelin star this week. This makes it one of only two Michelin-starred pubs in London, alongside the institution that is The Harwood Arms in Chelsea!

We’re chuffed for them and they deserve all the praise. The food, as we’ve said before, is excellent. The team have already said they don’t intend to increase prices or make any major changes in response to their newly starred status, which is great to hear, as we reckon it’s already about as close to perfect as a food-led pub can be!

Alongside the Michelin Guide, this also seems to be the season for endless clickbait lists, just what the internet needs more of! One in particular grabbed our attention, especially in light of Michelin’s recognition for The Kerfield.

Last month Estrella unveiled what it claims are the 50 best gastropubs in the UK, placing The Devonshire in Soho at number one…which seems a bit suspect to us!

Estrella ranked the Kerfield at 25th, but placed their sister pub The Baring higher at 17th, and ranked the excellent Canton Arms in Stockwell higher still at 11th!

This highlights one of the oddities of awarding a star to the Kerfield, excellent as it is

There are so many other places in London doing equally, and in some cases perhaps even better food, that have not received the same recognition from the guide. We understand that the inspectors can’t visit everywhere…but if we’re grouping the Kerfield alongside places like (to name just a few) Portland, Evelyn’s Table and Elystan Street, it does raise questions about what the Michelin Guide really stands for?

To be clear, we’re big fans of pubs serving excellent food getting the recognition they deserve, and The Kerfield is absolutely doing that. To be even clearer, we’re not complaining about a lack of recognition ourselves. It’s not what we’re chasing and we’re certainly not aspiring to a Michelin star at Wilson’s!

We’re simply wondering how the world’s most influential restaurant guide chooses which of the many excellent places, all doing very similar things, should be invited into the club. We could easily list another 20 places in London cooking at a similar level to The Kerfield and they all deserve praise and recognition. It’s not obvious how Michelin are deciding which are worthy and which are not and that feels a little confusing to say the least…

Regardless of our misgivings about the guide itself…this feels like a good time of year to be celebrating restaurants (and pubs) especially given the tough times across the industry so let’s close with that!

Behind every one of these accolades is a team of hard working, passionate professionals at the very top of their game doing what it takes to succeed in a very challenging world. They deserve all the recognition, praise and respect they get…as does anyone who chooses to make hospitality their profession!