Delectable design, elegant atmosphere, well prepared food, and brilliantly chosen wines: The East Hill is hard to beat.

The Venue
Hidden in a residential street and looking more like a modern country residence than a pub, The East Hill shines for its beautiful interior decor, cleverly structured around powdery colours, different floral upholsteries, big unfinished wooden tables, a working fireplace and old pieces taken from a farm. The environment is clean, bright and permeated by country elegance made comfortable by the presence of big woven carpets, wall benches and old-style leather couches.

Upstairs, a small room seating twelve can be hired for small private functions while the intimate interior is matched by a fashionable and fairly large patio, furnished with black chairs and dark stone tables. The delectable decor makes this a comfortable nest.

The Atmosphere
Despite its elegance, the atmosphere at The East Hill is far from pretentious: casual clothes and a relaxed attitude are more than enough to enjoy your time here and surely the many groups of thirtysomething friends and older couples coming down for a meal or a drink think that way. The occasional sporting event attracts big crowds even during week nights, but otherwise the pub is placidly conversation prone.

Service is dedicated and attentive - ideal for putting customers at ease. Indeed, visits here can be unusually long due to the homely feel of the place: the Wandsworth crowd just does not want to leave.

The Food
Food is very popular with groups of regulars, in particular the fully satisfactory char-grilled rib eye steak (£15) served with chips, onion rings and choice of mustard. The dinner menu is very simple, made of a handful of cold starters (£4-£7), a selection of traditional main courses (£8.50-£15), few sides (£3) and desserts handmade on the premises(£5-£7).

Within the mains and in the menu in general, classic pub dishes dominate: imagine beer battered haddock with chips, old spot pork chop topped with black sticks blue cheese, East Hill burger with mature cheddar and bacon and a palatable pan fried duck breast with roasted baby vegetable and red wine jus. The fresh ingredients, good presentation and excellent balance of flavours definitely make this a pub just as worth remembering as a dining spot.

The Drink
Beers and wines are far from disappointing: you can opt for a Tea, San Miguel, Bitburger, Twickenham Scrum Down, Doombar, Aspall on draught, or Tiger, Sol, Konig Ludwig Weiss and Baltica (Russia) in bottles.

The real attraction as far as the drinks go, however, is the wine, arranged in a menu 30 wine yards long. Whites and reds are grouped according to dryness and flavours and they have been selected with extreme care and knowledge from all different wine yards. Even within the Champagne and sparklers most names are unheard of - a symptom of the attention paid to every single item on the list, all the way down to the pudding wine and port. Prices reflect the painstaking work behind this choice but are not excessive: bottles are priced between £12 and £23 while large and small glasses go for £4.60-£7 and £3.30-£5 respectively.

The Last Word
What sets The East Hill apart is definitely its superb design and since this is happily complemented by great food and drink options and a homely atmosphere, this elegant gastropub is highly recommended.

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