Packing a Punch

The Punch Tavern used to be a big Fleet Street pub which had served the Street well throughout the years when it needed plenty of holes in which to water journalists.

Punch magazine was allegedly dreamed up here in the early 19th century. After a recent spat, and in the spirit of all great conflicts, the joint owners went their separate ways by splitting the pub down the middle with a bloody great wall. The marble-topped bar still stretches through the wall into the Sam Smith's Crown & Sugarloaf next door. Hence, the room has disorientating dimensions, like those in bad house-to-flat conversions.

Since new blood arrived last November they've made this pub into a unique place that takes some describing. What's on tap? Aside from Timothy Taylor's Landlord, San Miguel and Guinness, there's fresh carrot juice, home baking, a wine list with a simple pricing policy of cost, a game of backgammon or Monopoly, tatty old cookery and gardening books, a dresser full of toiletries (including ear buds) in the ladies, a lunchtime buffet to eat in or take away by the front door, free popcorn, free Bombay mix, homemade iced tea and lemonade, a decent espresso for half the price of Starbucks. The Punch operates like a cross between an Irish village pub and an enthusiastically run provincial tea shop. Its single aim seems to be, whatever you want, we got it!

Brother Ben had good porky sausages and gallons of creamy mash that, like much here, tasted and looked homemade. I went to the buffet (something I avoid as a rule) and chose a vegetable Thai green curry and a couple of the many salads on offer. It was, sadly, buffet food: thick sauce, the flavours a bit dead, nothing of the fresh zing and vibrancy you expect with a green curry. Perhaps I chose badly.

A slice of millionaire's shortbread was a bit pallid and crumbly underneath, but the swirls of white and milk chocolate on top were thick and good quality. Sticky toffee pudding was a thin slice of sponge, dense and gooey with the natural sweetness of dates.

We were sitting by the fire and it was cold outside. The staff were friendly. I was tempted to take down the Boggle and stay a while.

The Punch is homespun and endearingly amateurish in its approach, which some people will love. If you can't make it down for a look then given them a call - they'll deliver your steak sandwich to Fetter Lane if you like.

The Punch Tavern
99 Fleet Street, EC4Y 1DE