Slow-cooked British short rib with fries, summer slaw and ginger ale ketchup (£15.50)
A good pub doesn’t have to offer good food, and lord knows a good pub in central London doesn’t have to – even the ones where the house wine tastes like it was poured from a carton will be heaving by 5.15pm on any given weekday. This is convenient for The Prince of Wales Feathers, because though it is a nice enough place for a post-work pint, you’re better skipping dinner. I suspect the chef was not in charge of preparing all the things I ate there, or if he was they had almost certainly spent some time in a chest freezer before making it to my plate. The slow-cooked shortrib needed to be slower-cooked – the meat clung determinedly to the bone even when I abandoned fork and attacked with fingers. A miserly pot of coleslaw was mushy, watery, and none of my five-a-day. The fries, thankfully, were lovely.
Peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake with toffee sauce (£6)
We’d saved space for promising-sounding puddings, but it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t realise it was possible to underseason a cheesecake, but beware the blandness of the offender pictured above. The POWF is a decent pub; great staff, good drink selection, plenty of seating, even that most sought-after of venue highlights – a roof terrace. And the food will fill a gap. Just think of it as a stomach-liner rather than a palate-pleaser.
The Prince of Wales Feathers
★★✰✰✰ £££
8 Warren Street, London W1T 5LD, 020 7383 4849
I ate as a guest of The Prince of Wales Feathers
