23A Edwardes Square,
Kensington,
London,
W8 6HE
0872 148 4447
The ViewLondon Review
This is a straightforward, up market local pub. What it may lack in youth culture, it makes up for with drapery and comfort.
Edwardes Square makes you feel like a bit of a peasant, with its tall glossy town houses, gated manicured garden, and abundance of Mercedes. But once in the Scarsdale, you can enjoy a feeling of relaxed quality. Judging from the empty magnums of champagne that line the walls, you’ll be in good company.
The atmosphere is fairly cosy, wannabe opulent and a little cluttered. Wrought iron chandeliers and lanterns hang from the ceiling and heavily gilded frames sit on the textured burgundy plaster walls.
A colourful stained glass partition divides the pub area from the restaurant area, and heavily swaged curtains with fulsome and voluptuous tasselled pelmets wriggle down from the windows.
Slightly kitschy paintings of fruit, and one surreal picture of a man with a napoleon hairdo on a flying horse add to a general impression of a camp Victorian tavern. It isn’t trendy, but it works, and I can imagine it would be most warming to come in from the cold to the solid, heavy tables and chairs and the cheery atmosphere.
The crowd is a mixture of whiskery business men drinking whiskey to unwind after work, young lads having a drink and the odd slightly eccentric aging bohemian who obviously hasn’t quite made it as far as the neighbouring Notting Hill.
There is bar food available all day and a separate restaurant that takes bookings. The wine list is solid – 9 reds, 9 whites, and 5 kinds of champagne. The menus seem to be a mixture of home-grown and Mediterranean: from the restaurant you can have steak, lamb, pork chops, duck or some linguine which seems a little out on a pasta limb of its own.
The bar staff are friendly and clearly valued by their regulars. The Scarsdale is a proper local, it is reassuringly solid and the punters all seem to be enjoying themselves.
Scarsdale has been reviewed by 10 users