The Peasant, Clerkenwell

Skip The Nonsense

Oi! Oi you, peasant. This is LORD Gravy and I am here to tell you about my 5 point plan, along with a roast dinner review of The Peasant in Clerkenwell.

And I’m sure you are all excited to hear what I think about Prince Harry.

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Oops, sorry, that’s the wrong wannabe Prime Minister’s 5 (ish) point plan.

I was trying to instil the ethos of the other wannabe, you know, the one who gave away loads of government taxpayer’s money so everyone could chill out during the pandemic that we’ve all now forgotten about.

What? He’s been Prime Minister for the last few months? But I’ve barely moaned about him?

Guess you peasants really do need to hear my 5 point plan then:

Oi oaf

1. Halving Inflation. Yes, I am going to enjoy eating 3 even smaller roast potatoes than normal whilst paying more money. Whatever happens, do ensure that all Yorkshire puddings are oversized because that will make up for everything else being smaller, oh and preferably cook them the week before.
2. Economy Growing. I’ll be creating better paid jobs for people to bring me extra gravy, along with eating a minimum of 46 roast dinners in London, and maybe one or two in other countries.
3. Debt Falling. My debt to you remains, to find the best roast dinner in London – I hope I’ve already found the worst, but I reckon I can find even better than Blacklock – eventually.
4. Waiting Lists. Cutting the roast dinner to-do waiting lists, tackling those long outstanding suggestions such as Joanna’s in Norwood. Yep, I’m even willing to travel to bloody Norwood for you, the people.
5. Small Boats. I will have a roast dinner on a boat. Or at least in a pub with the word “boat” in its name. And take every opportunity to tell tin-pot racists like Farage to get in the fucking sea.

Those are the people’s priorities. I will either have achieved them or not achieved them. I’ll either be delivering roast dinner reviews for you, or I won’t be. And 40 hospitals…repainted. That is a promise.

Oi pleb

When I stumbled into The Peasant, all wet and bedraggled (not an actual peasant, thankfully, otherwise my chauffeur would have had to drive me back to my Mayfair townhouse for a shower), I realised that I’d been in here a few years before, with a couple of attractive Spanish women. I’m being serious. I used to have some European friends…before Brexit. Cheers, Rishi.

Apparently named after the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, when peasants tried to burn down government minister’s houses such as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s mud hut estate, after tax collectors tried to impose a Poll Tax. What is it about Poll Tax’s?

There isn’t really a sense that the building itself is that old – perhaps it was bombed in World War 11 and hence rebuilt, though my knowledge of London’s war damage is only marginally better than our previous culture secretary’s knowledge of culture, or history, or war, or law, or the internet, or humanity, or Boris Johnson’s anus. Well, maybe not the latter.

However there are a couple of older style touches inside – the “ladies” and “gentlemen” signs are reminiscent of an old fairground ride style, and…well…I noticed nothing else. But there was a cute sausage dog.

The bar at The Peasant is on the middle – seating is arranged around the edge in a semi-circle. I’m on detox so didn’t take a close look at beers, though I did notice the usual Camden Town and Beavertown yawns…though The Peasant’s website claims to “have one of the widest selections of beer in London, including some from the finest major and micro brewers”.

Oi Serf

Being a pub named after the Peasant’s Revolt, you’d hope that they are not ripping us off, and I did find the prices reasonable for central (ish) London.

Pork belly and half a chicken were each priced at £18.00, topside of beef at £19.00 and rump of lamb at the higher end, £24.00. I was between pork belly and lamb rump, but decided to save myself £6.00 and put that towards a pint of beer once I’ve finished my detox. Or maybe half a pint, at the rate inflation is growing.

Well, I guess you plebs are waiting for what I think of Prince Harry.

Amazingly, there was even less carrot than roast potato – just three pieces of rather nicely roasted carrot – honey, check; thyme, check – there was definite flavour and a spot on texture. But just three pieces of carrot.

The broccoli – proper original broccoli head with stalk, was a little on the crunchy side, but not too much. I’m always a fan of broccoli.

Then we had…oh, red cabbage. It was really rather fruity – in of itself, this is fine – you know the red cabbage isn’t a problem per se, it is more that I don’t like it on a roast dinner. I don’t want fruit on a roast dinner, but I can cope if it is in its place. But there was a problem, in that the little bits of red cabbage got everywhere – so it wasn’t a pile I could merrily eat and forget – that fruity flavour kept cropping up. Annoying, but some people would be delighted, so hey.

Oi sharecropper

Finally for vegetables, we had cauliflower cheese. Actual cheese-flavour at times, though also as wet as an average British January day. Or just an average British day, awaiting my opinion on Prince Harry.

Three roast potatoes were supplied – of course. No evidence of crispy sides, but they were soft inside and had their flavour brought out well – someone knows what they are doing here, but just needs to make them crispy.

The Yorkshire pudding was good. Soft on bottom, crispy on sides – probably even made on the same day.

Doesn’t the pork belly remind you of Prince Harry? Prince Harry Maguire, that is – a proper slabhead of meat.

I loved the slab-ness, but they hadn’t made an attempt to crisp up the crackling – for the top layer was just chewy. And, they had spread a layer of apple sauce on it. DO NOT ENFORCE CONDIMENTS ON A ROAST DINNER. It should be my choice. And I do not want fruit on a roast dinner. You wouldn’t put pineapple on a pizza, peach in a pie, or banana on fish and chips – don’t put apple on a roast dinner.

So I’ve had better pork belly – but also I’ve had worse, and the slabbidity (up yours spell-checker) did make up somewhat for the errors.

Finally, the gravy was proper. A little on the rich side, perhaps a hint of red wine, definitely meat stock and reasonably thick. Gravy to send you home happy. In the rain. In January. On detox. So maybe it sent me home content.

Oi Peasant.

So, two roast dinners so far in 2023 and both have been honourable efforts.

The Peasant did do a couple of annoying things – red cabbage getting everywhere, apple sauce enforced on my pork and the lack of bothering to finish the crackling part of the pork belly.

But otherwise everything was enjoyable. I don’t think anything really stood out, but the gravy was satisfying, all the vegetables (at least the ones I like) were appealing and there was a bit slab of meat. You could say it was good, squeezing very good, overall.

My accomplice was very happy with her topside of beef – I had actually wanted beef beforehand but I’m not keen on basic topside. Her score was a 7.95 out of 10.

My score is a very respectable 7.73.

No plan yet for next week, but all being well, there will be another roast dinner.

Oh and finally – my thoughts on Prince Harry:

HA.