Reaching new heights

In much the same way as most high streets provide enough customers to keep both a Woolworth's and a Marks & Spencer busy, so the area around Masbro Road has all the chic housing needed to support a couple of gastropubs. Which is handy, as the Havelock Tavern (two stars) was one of the first London pubs to get the gastro treatment, while one of the latest is the Bird In Hand about a hundred yards away.

Martin Connolly and Tom Finnigan have turned the Bird into a 'bar and restaurant', and done so with a welcome dash of style. Not so many years ago, the Bird In Hand was a very staid place full of old codgers. It did have its own self-published newsletter - wittily called 'Chirp' and dealing with outings, funerals and so forth - but that was about as exciting as things got. Now there is a spacious room with a giant telly for the footie and a bar with lots of different kinds of vodka and lager.

When it comes to the menu, Messrs Connolly and Finnigan have taken a bold step: in the evening there is a 'Retro Menu'. While many gastropubs nod to the occasional retro dish, at the Bird they seem to be taking the idea fairly seriously. There's a prawn cocktail straight from the Sixties - flabby prawns, the pinkest Marie Rose sauce, chopped lettuce, all stuffed into a wine glass. There is smoked salmon and pink grapefruit with Demerara sugar.

Mains hammer on along the same path: scampi and chips - very crisp, very pleasant, but for genuine Seventies nostalgia, these crisp balls should have been faked with slivers of monkfish substituted for the prawns (in those days monkfish was cheaper than prawn. Weird, eh?). There's spaghetti Bolognaise. There's chicken Kiev - a bit too modern, dry and crisp rather than full of melted butter that squirts your shirt when you cut into it. There is also 'steak au poivre', once again a modern variant - no sludgy pepper sauce, just a sound enough steak covered in cracked pepper and grilled.

Service is very friendly, the wine list favours cheaper bottles, and everyone seems very happy, which is a good thing as the nearby Havelock is jammed to the rafters and you get a bit more room at the Bird, not to mention the prospect of a prawn cocktail.

The Bird In Hand
88 Masbro Road, W14 0LR