Spruced-up by Bruce

Hands up all those of you who remember David Bruce. No? Bruce was the founding father of the Firkin chain of pubs back in 1979, a chain that started with the Goose & Firkin in Borough High Street, the only venue not to employ the trademark alliterative couplets in the name (the Fox & Firkin, the Philatelist & Firkin) and quickly grew into a 200-strong empire.

Firkins were revolutionary at the time: most were microbrewery operations, producing some terrific beers, but the Firkin humour on signs inside the pubs ('Firkin Loos', 'Firkin Food', 'Firkin Music') was tedious and wore thin very quickly. Bruce eventually sold the chain for a reported £6.8 million in the late Eighties.

But you can't keep a good entrepreneur down, it seems, and Bruce is back again with a new chain of pubs, all unbranded. Some were acquired as going concerns, such as the Ladbroke Arms in Notting Hill and the Anglesea Arms in South Kensington - others, like this, the former Puzzle Pub, have been bought and transformed into what I assume to be Bruce's latest interpretation of a happening venue.

And happening is what the Balham Arms is, particularly at weekends and midweek evenings when enthusiastic, young-at-heart party folk help to keep the party spirits high.

The place has been fitted out in the style of a contemporary lounge bar -albeit one you'd expect to find in Pontefract rather than London - and has a very unattractive courtyard heaped with redundant garden furniture, and a nonsmoking dining area at the back of the building.

The drinks on offer manage to transcend most levels of expectation, with Paulaner beer, Scrumpy Jack cider and San Miguel on draught, with Foster's and Kronenbourg bringing up the rear.

There's no real ale, sadly. Bottled beers include the wonderful Belgian beer, Leffe Blonde, the premium quality Czech Budvar and a heavy emphasis on the chav drinks that are Smirnoff Ice and Bacardi Breezer, perfectly reflecting the majority of the clientele.

The food is a step above the old Firkin nonsense, in terms of price if not quality. Whoever thought of putting eggs Benedict in a bowl with a soup of balsamic vinegar and slices of French bread rather than a muffin is having fun at our expense - £5.50 worth of fun, for a starter portion, to be precise. And main courses of ham hock or rump of lamb are ambitiously priced at £13.95 each.

Still, the sandwich menu (£4.95-£7.95) including steak, sausages with onions and mushrooms, or a burger, all served on wooden platters, seem to be popular as beersoakers with the largely undiscerning crowd.

I won't be going back because I'm not an offmyhead kid trying to make my mark on an unsuspecting world. But if I were - oh God that I were - I'd be at the Balham Arms every night of the week.

The Balham Arms
90-92 Balham High Road, SW12