Enticed by clever choices

Rough edges are what define the gastropub. Cloth-covered tables, fiddly food and high prices are horribly disfiguring; plates of clever nosh and a 20-bottle list of juicy sub-£20 wines are the ideal. The Waterway , with its throbbing music and extensive cocktail list, is more of a gastrobar than a gastropub. The Oak, meanwhile, a strange brown lump of a pub surrounded by the winking lights of a thousand council flats, has sensibly decided to be a gastropub downstairs and a restaurant upstairs. I liked both parts of The Oak, though is there really no space in the pub cellar for a cask of Summer Lightning or Brakspear's Bitter?

Upstairs, of course, all is wine - and good wine, too. The list has been compiled by Mike Dowding, whose track record includes Ransome's Dock, the River Cafe, Kensington Place and Smiths of Smithfield. It's not a long list, but it doesn't need to be; clever choices dominate, both from France and Italy.

A Montlouis Petillant from the great Jacky Blot, for example, would make an inexpensive and diverting sparkling aperitif wine for a table of six £24 plus £3 service); Tribut's 2000 Chablis is far better than you'll find in posher places (£28.13 including service); and I reproved myself for failing to try the 2001 Jurancon Sec from Cauhape; at a mere £25.31 including service, since bottles from great vintages and winemakers of genius are rarely less than £50.

The Italians were so enticing, though, that I got distracted. Pupille's cherryish Morellino and scented whites from the thoughtful Franz Haas both tempted, but the three Piedmontese reds (Vajra's 2000 Dolcetto, Grasso's '98 Nebbiolo delle Langhe and Aldo Conterno's '99 Barbera) were what swung it.

In the end I chose the cheapest: the Dolcetto at £27 including service. My guest and I uncurled like cats, cosseted by its sweet-edged yet sour-fruited silkiness and its limpid and unforced purity.

Wine list scores 4 out of 5.