A secret drinking den

Twenty-five years ago the pub now known as The Idle Hour was called The Manor Arms and had a rather louche reputation. It may have been off the beaten track but it definitely had all the right credentials in the hard-drinking, wild-partying department, and an air of mystery that stemmed from its inaccessibility.

There is no passing trade here. To be absolutely accurate, there isn't even a street here, as the pub sits on a pathway that runs under the railway line. It's near enough impossible to find, and impossible to park if you're lucky enough to find it, so you must abandon your car and trek in on foot like some Amazonian explorer.

Find Brookwood Avenue on the A-Z, then take the alleyway called Beverley Path, then take the first path branching off to the left and go under the railway line. The pub is small, welcoming and as informal as only a team of Antipodean barmaids can make it, and there's a decent pint of Adnam's to be had.

The food, however, is pretty ordinary. That is not to say that they are not trying hard, but the muddle on the menu shifts effortlessly to muddle on the plate. 'Home-made koftas made with organic lamb mince on a bed of romaine lettuce with red onion and lemon served with cucumber raita' - small, gnarled, under-seasoned, the plate prettied up and the price cheeky at £5.95. Other starters include green-lipped mussels in coconut milk and coriander, and home-made tomato and fennel soup. They charge for bread here, and irrational as it may be, nothing is so irritating as paying extra for bread.

Main courses range from 'authentic Thai green curry with organic chicken breast and fragrant jasmine rice' (you cannot help speculating that if it were authentic, they would not have to say so) to home-made shepherd's pie made with organic beef mince' (so that's cottage pie then, and no snip at £10.95) and 'Tasmanian mountain pepper-encrusted prime ostrich steak with lemon myrtle mash and broccoli'.

The dish towers above the plate, a turret of decent mash - though not very lemon-myrtley - is studded with broccoli spears and topped with two chunks of meat. It is amazing how tough ostrich can be - it must be all the running they do.

The Idle Hour is a moody, hidden away venue - a grand place to go drinking, to be sure, but give the ostrich a miss.

The Idle Hour
62-63 Railway Side, SW13 0PQ