The Gun

It’s a 15-minute walk from Canary Wharf, which in my opinion is a long journey for a weekday lunch. It’s also pricey as a lunch option – most mains are £15-20 – but it’s worth the trip and the money.

he dining room is always packed with Canary Wharf suits for lunch, as is the outdoor terrace that overlooks the Thames. I like the comfortable, old, masculine feel of the Gun, and because it’s been around for hundreds of years, the place comes with an interesting bit of history: Admiral Nelson would allegedly meet his mistress, Emma Hamilton, here. Lest you overlook this mildly-scandalous tidbit, the men’s room is labeled “Horatio” and the women’s, “Emma.”

The menu changes regularly, and it’s an ambitious, seasonal one that’s heavy on seafood offerings. When I went yesterday, I had a pan-fried fillet of dover sole. It’d been lightly battered and seasoned, and I’m sure there was more butter involved in its cooking than I want to know. Still, all that butter worked its crisping, salty, creamy magic on the sole, and much as I enjoy a side of potato tower and refreshing arugula, I was stuffed after eating just the fish.

In all my past meals at the Gun, I’ve been happy with the fish specials, which is no surprise given how close the restaurant is to the Billingsgate Fish Market.

Service is fast and helpful, and what thrills me is the ease with which pitchers of tap water are provided. A lunch with a starter, main and glass of wine (this is Europe, after all) runs about £35 a person. Not a cheap lunch, but a high-quality one.

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I awoke early Sunday Morning, with sunlight streaming through the bedroom window. The sky, a vivid shade of blue. Days with weather such as this, rare in Britain, reward the early riser.

After a quick conference with the bleary eyed partner, it was decided. Greenwich on a Sunday, a trawl round the shops and market, some time spent in the beautiful spring flower strewn park, a walk by the Thames and a spot of lunch somewhere nice.

The Gun, just across the Thames from Greenwich in the Isle of Dogs is somewhere I've wanted to eat for ages. I've read so many good reviews, heard so many good things. That's where I wanted to have lunch.

After walking under the Thames through the Greenwich foot tunnel, and a 15 minute walk through the Isle of Dogs, we arrived outside the rather attractive 'Gun' around 12-30, a bit earlier than I'd like for Sunday lunch but I've heard it gets extremely busy, and I'm determined to get a table on the terrace overlooking the Thames and the 02 arena on the opposite bank.
My careful planning reaped it's reward, and we cadge a riverside table without too much trouble.

After perusing the menu, we decide to skip the starters (saving room for dessert) and press onto the mains. As it's Sunday, and I love a roast dinner, I go for Roast Sirloin of Beef, this comes with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, honey glazed carrots, parsnip, broccoli, red wine gravy and horseradish.

My partner orders the wild mushroom and chestnut wellington with brussel sprouts and truffle emulsion.
It's a lovely day, the terrace is buzzing with fellow customers reading the Sunday papers and drinking wine, the food arrives surprisingly quickly.

Mine is good, the potatoes are gorgeous and crispy, the beef is nicely cooked, definitely one of the better Sunday dinners I've had anywhere. There's some kind of problem with the offered Horseradish sauce, it doesn't seem to have any actual Horseradish in it!.....I like it eye wateringly pungent, but this is soon put right by a passing waitress.

What's interesting is my partners choice, it looks amazing (No photos, as she tucked in like lightning before I even got a chance to take a picture). She offered me a try, and wow.....this is how good it was, I hate brussel sprouts, I always have.....but this casually proffered fork full of food made me re-evaluate my whole 35 year hatred of the vegetable, combined with the mushrooms and truffle emulsion the taste was truly stunning.

Polishing off our mains, it was onto desert. I can't resist a sticky toffee pudding and despite the fairly hefty main, I figured what with all the walking, I'd soon work it off.....this came with malt ice-cream.My other half went for the Cheeseboard, which at £9 was a pretty expensive cheese option, but ended up being well worth the money.
The toffee pudding was great, I've eaten these all over the place and it was one of the best examples of toffee goodness Ive ever eaten, the malt ice cream was the perfect partner.

The Cheeseboard was interesting, it arrived on a slate with various crackers, oat biscuits, toasted walnut bread, red grapes and five different cheeses, all British produce - Blackstick's Blue from Lancashire, Tornegus from Somerset, Quickes farmhouse cheddar from Dorset, Kidderton Ashe from Lancashire and finally Bath soft organic from Somerset. I'd finished off my dessert with gusto, so helped my girlfriend polish off the cheeseboard, we could have ordered just that between us, so it was well worth the cost. The Cheeses were great, we ate the lot.

The Gun is without a doubt one of the best gastro-pubs I've eaten in, although I've got a real soft spot for the much less refined, much more rough and ready 'The Eagle' in Farringdon Road and 'The Ginger Pig' in Brighton where I ate recently currently holds the 'gastro-pub numero uno' spot as far as I'm concerned. But, if your in Greenwich one fine Sunday and fancy a bit of walk and a fantastic lunch overlooking the river, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere better to spend the afternoon.

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Gastropubs can be the equivalent of a good Italian trattoria, affording you good and nicely priced food, as we recounted for example about LMNT. This time we go for a less exotic and rather straight English gastropub. Near the Billingsley fish market, it specialises in fish; we are in the mood for some good fish; and we go in fully expectant to have some. Will we succeed? Follow us…

You open the door to enter a pleasant environment, the dining room area contiguous to the pub area, with lots of dark wood (floor and chairs) and the tables even covered by that rarity, proper tablecloths: you don’t find them in 5 star hotel restaurants (right, Brunello?), but you do in pubs. We begin moaning that the world is turning upside down, we must be getting old….

The service immediately gives the idea of being springy, fresh and friendly: you are welcome in the right way.

On the menu choices from sea and land. Starters go from the £5.50 of the pea soup to the £7.50 of the Croquette of chicken and foie gras, mixed leaves and truffle dressing. And the mains range from £13.50 for the Leek and truffle pithivier, green beans and Madeira jus, to £19.50 for the Scottish sirloin steak with sautéed truffle potatoes & béarnaise sauce.

The bread soon arrives to the table:

It may not be a fantastic offering in absolute terms, but we welcome the very existence of a bread plate here, and the raisin and nut bread is not too bad.

Our choice of starter is:

- Dorset Crab and toast (£6.50)

- Risotto of broad beans, peas & soft herbs (£6.50)

The crab, which comes in a very very tiny portion, is quietly pleasant, although it does not vibrate with freshness or intensity of flavour. The bread slice is also really nothing to write home about. The accompanying pink dressing is on the other hand quite good.

The risotto is not a risotto: it is simply boiled, in fact overboiled and possibly reheated, rice. Apart from this, and also apart from the fact that the advertised broad beans were a rarity to find in the plate (which was on the other hand generously endowed with peas) if one concentrated just on the flavour ignoring the texture, she might have had some joy, courtesy mainly of the fresh herbs that offered a distinctive, abundant and clear signature.

Our mains appear:

- Pan fried sea bass, fricassée of carrots, morels, pearl onions, baby gem and noilly prat velouté (£16.50)

- Sea bream (special of the day) £17.95

The seabass dish looks colourful and visually attractive, but the smallness of the fish portion causes some discomfort. There are just two sad looking paper thin tails (who gets the chunky fillet, we wonder, the chef?). They have however been pan-fried as if they had been chunky filled, therefore for too long: they are mortifyingly overcooked. The best part of the dish is the array of small vegetables (and tiny bits of morels), which are on the contrary cooked well and left nicely crunchy, and of good quality. And now Man and Woman have to disagree on the sauce (dubiously described as a veloute’): Woman found it too creamy and almost disgusting (bringing up certain memories), whereas Man found it too fat, yes, but liked its decisive taste.

And finally with the bream we learn that the chef can actually cook something properly. The fish has a nice consistency, although once again it is not generous in flavour (incidentally this portion, i.e. a whole fish, is many times the size of the other dish. We worry we are missing some trick). The accompanying asparagus, as well as the potatoes, are also good, and the hollandaise sauce, served in a separate cup, was very well made. So far probably the best dish.

We conclude with our desserts:

- Pear tatin with pear ice-cream (£5.50)

- Crumble with rhubarb (£5.50)

The ice cream is mediocre, partly frozen, with crystals all over making the texture poor. Woman insists it tasted of vanilla rather than pear, while Man hypocritically convinces himself it really tasted of pear. The tatin, while a little burned underneath, was not bad.

The crumble is overwhelming in the generosity of the portion. The custard is excellent, the crumble pleasantly irregular, the rhubarb perfect. A well interpreted classic.

With a basic Muscadet (£15) and a 0.75 litre bottle of water, the bill comes to (oh, we forgot the bill…but we can still do some sums…) around £85. With a ‘normal’ (for us) wine we would have paid as much as in our fine dining favourites. This is very bad news for a gastropub.

The service is a real bonus of this establishment. It is informal and ‘young’ but professional enough, with the waiters constantly but not overwhelmingly enquiring about your welfare, and even serving wine correctly. It is clear that there is good management behind this performance, something we admire.

And in the kitchen? Well, whoever is cooking clearly is not completely devoid of technique, as evidenced by some sauces. Nevertheless, the cooking in our dinner left much to be desired. This is rather basic food, which relies much on cooking and the quality of the ingredients. We said what we think of the former. About the latter, the vegetables were definitely above average, but the seafood and fish were less than wowing. We had an acceptable dinner; but, at these prices, it is definitely not worth it, in our opinion. So long, the Gun.

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I came across The Gun with a friend last week, she has moved into the area and it is her new local. A fab pub, the dining room was full that evening so we sat in the pub and had a couple of burgers off the pub menu, really yummy. We also had some lovely wine, the list seemed extensive and well priced. Highly recommended from us both.

I took my parents to The Gun for Sunday lunch a few weeks ago, thankfully the sun was shining. We managed to get a table on the terrace and as others have mentioned below the views are really fantastic.My dad was fascinated by the history of The Gun that our waiter recounted for us, supposedly Nelson had came to The Gun?The food was hearty and delicious. The wine list was an interesting mix of new and old world, we favoured the house red, (named after the owners, our waiter told us) a syrah/cabernet blend which was yummy and very reasonable.It is well worth the little journey to get there, I would definitely return!