Robin Garr's LOUISVILLE Restaurant Reviews

*** Sir Churchill's English Pub and Eatery
10317 Watterson Trail
(502) 297-8600
It might be going a bit far to call Sir Churchill's an authentic English pub, but why be picky? The management of this welcoming new spot has done a great job of taking an old farmhouse on suburban Jeffersontown's historic Town Square and giving it a throughly British feeling with a collection of pictures, souvenirs and knick-knacks sufficient to please the most Anglophiliac among us.

Every room here has a unifying British theme: Winston Churchill memorabilia dominates one section, and the popular Manchester United football (that's "soccer" to us colonials) squad fills another large downstairs room with team photos, pennants and banners ... an undersized suit of armor ... even a British sports channel on the big-screen TV!

Add a reasonable rendition of British-style "pub grub" and a small but tasty selection of beers and ales from the United Kingdom and its neighbors, and you've got a mighty pleasant place to quaff a cool pint.

What's pub grub? Think fish and chips and steak-and-kidney pie, a filling if relentlessly beige cuisine, heavy on the starch and light on the vegetables. My wife asked, "Do you have anything green?" Our server had to think about it for a minute before replying, "Uh, no, I don't think so."

The brief but hearty menu features six starters that range from $2.25 (for chips - that's "French fries" to us Colonials - and gravy) to $5.95 (for a plate of a half-dozen stuffed potato "jackets" or a combo appetizer selection of "jackets," sausage rolls and chicken-on-a-stick).

A short list of eight main courses are $5.95 (for a savory shepherd's pie of ground steak and veggies topped with mashed potatoes) to $7.95 (for several choices including curry beef pasty, homemeade steak-and-mushroom or kidney pies and chicken curry) plus a six-ounce burger ($4.50, or $5 with cheese).

There's a limited selection of Fetzer wines by the glass and bottle, but you really want to drink British ales at a British pub. Or at least I do! The beer list is good, featuring modest selection of beers from Britain and neighbors (a Scottish brew and a couple of Irish beers add leavening to the mix) and a short list of basic mass-market American beers. The British selection tends toward major breweries like Sam Smith and Young's, which isn't bad, but with the wide selection of intriguing pub brews and microbrewery products from the UK available nowadays, it would be even more fun to see something like Old Speckled Hen or Pitchfork Rebellious Bitter turn up as specials on the list.

The draught British beers are all $2.50 for a 12-ounce glass (billed as a half-pint), $3.50 for a 16-ounce pint and $4.25 for a 20-ounce "imperial pint." A dozen British bottled beers are mostly $3.75. You can also get mass-market domestic beers for less, but why would you do that?

We asked for a round of Bass Ale and Boddington's to start, and received two apparently identical glasses of golden, fruity ale. I'm deeply suspicious that we got two Boddington's and no Bass, but it's not a big deal - they were foamy and appropriately bitter and went down well on a warm spring evening. They're served a bit colder than you'd get in a British pub, but the notion that the British drink their ales "warm" is a myth anyway. These seemed just about right for Jeffersontown if not for Southwark, cool enough to refresh but not so icy cold as to kill the robust ale flavors.

An order of potato jackets ($5.95) made a hearty appetizer that was ample for two and in fact would be enough to make a dinner portion for one. Six smallish potato skins were stuffed with tasty fillings: Two each of shepherd's pie (ground beef and mild Cheddar), curry (surprisingly spicy curried beef and cheese), and ham, cheese, tomato and onion (as advertised, with all the ingredients diced and topped with cheese).

A main course order of steak and kidney pie ($7.95) didn't look like a large portion but proved filling, stuffed with long-cooked stew beef and bits of kidney, served with an oval chunk of flaky puff pastry sitting loosely on top. This is an English original that doesn't ease up for American tastes; if you don't like the intense, earthy flavors of "organ meat," you may want to steer clear; but my wife, remembering a youthful summer in Cheltenham, declared it a success.

Fish and chips ($5.95) were about as good as this simple fare gets, an ample slab of Icelandic cod, lightly breaded and crisply fried. The French fries (oh, all right, "chips") served with both main courses were excellent, hand-cut and fried to perfection, almost too hot to touch.

Ready for refills in the beer department, we called for pints of Fuller's ESB, soft and sweet with an intense caramel flavor of malt; and Tennent's Scottish Ale, light, crisp and bitter. Hmm ... I wondered if the man switched glasses on us, but they were appealing either way, and we racked up two more initials on our Sir Churchill's Pub Card - taste all the beers in the collection and we'll win a T-shirt.

This is a friendly place, welcoming and comfortable, well worth a repeat visit, and the fare is affordable if not downright cheap: A filling dinner for two, including a shared appetizer and two rounds of pints, came to $34.04, to which we added a $6.96 for helpful if somewhat inexperienced service. $$