Time Out (Five Stars out of Five)

Is there a better-tasting or better-kept pint in London than the light and hoppy Hogs Back Summer Ale pulled at the Herne Tavern? No wonder this pub is as attractive to the workmen at the wood-panelled bar as it is to the families that pack out the happily shabby back garden.

And the food? Starters were excellent: own-made gravadlax served mouth-meltingly tender, the salmon balanced well between sweet and salty. But the star was the scotch duck egg: the yolk half-soft, half-set; the sausage meat kicking with spicy flavour. Mains were similarly confident. Black bream was slightly over-salted, but in combination with clams and samphire, it delivered a briny bowl of big seaside flavours. Our burger patty was so rare it was virtually steak tartare; cheap meat would be exposed by such treatment, but this passed the test easily - a great wallop of high-quality mince. It hardly mattered that the french fries were nondescript; and anyway, who would want to waste pudding room on chips when the afters are this good?

Dark chocolate mocha tart was, in essence, a big slab of chocolate. Less calorifically disastrous (just), the Secretts Farm strawberries and balsamic ice-cream was massively sweet, though could perhaps have been more balsamic, but that's to quibble; pretty much everything was very good indeed.

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