Attractive Scar on South Ken

If there's a sensible way of classifying London pubs, it's probably along military lines: there are your poor infantry, cannon-fodder corner locals; your larger, slightly classier, staider NCOs' roadhouses/gin-palaces, where you can't swear and men still sometimes wear suits on Sundays; racy new milk-bars (Pitcher & Piano, All Bar One) for your Brylcreem boys and faster Wrens; gentlemen-only establishments (Dutch military); and, finally, a few officer-class hostelries like The Scarsdale in Kensington's Edwardes Square, which was built as barracks for Napoleon's officers in the 19th century by a sneaky but deluded Frenchman who thought Boney could actually win.

Appropriately, this imposingly handsome Georgian foodie-pub, with its attractive front terrace, is still very popular with South Kensington's French community, local residents, and - if the hacking-jackets and crewcuts were anything to go by - our own Sandhurst boys. Inappropriately, it is also now, by all accounts, favoured by Madonna, who pops in occasionally for a mineral water.

Somehow, I doubt she also enjoys the excellent house-speciality steaks (from £11.25), but she may go for the fish, or take the advice of the winsomely handwritten menu: 'Or go see chef, who'll tell you've what we've got - and we'll cook it just how you like it! Simple!' The dead hand of the brewery PR who wrote this was my only real complaint about the pub, but I trust the chain-style practises - staff polo-shirts, slightly flakey Antipodean service - won't go much further. Not on my watch, corporal.

Scarsdale Tavern
23a Edward Square, W8 6HE