The Phoenix

23 Smith Street, Chelsea SW3 4EE
Imagine you’re wearing a really, really tight baseball cap. So tight your brain is knocking on the sides of your skull and demanding evacuation. Now imagine you’re also on Oxford Street. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon. On a Saturday. Just before Christmas.

Suddenly, you’re not on Oxford Street any more but by yourself on top of a lonely hill in the Cotswolds, in the sun, sitting on a couch big enough for three yous, with a pint of irresponsibly strong beer in your hand. You remove the baseball cap and simultaneously take a sip of your delightful beverage. AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......

Well, that’s The Phoenix. The zenith of AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh. The heavyweight champion of AHHHHHhhhhh. The Grand Old Duke of AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhh.

When you visit The Phoenix - which you will - you’ll need to take the following items with you:
A) 1x parking permit for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
B) 1x squeegey
C) 1x wallpaper scraper, preferably the largest one you can possibly find

This is because, on all counts, you’ll be staying for some time and will no doubt eventually need assistance to help scrape your sorry ass off the couch and out onto the street. It’s closing time and you’ve got work tomorrow, remember?

The Phoenix is the 5-year old offspring of hot-stuffs, Geronimo Inns, who have thankfully been throwing their weight around London for a while. And much like their other community castles - The Fentiman Arms in Oval and The Morgan Arms in Mile End - the positioning of The Phoenix at a quiet residential crossroad is a very deliberate and homely move by Geronimo. Although being well hidden, The Phoenix is not really off the beaten track so much as slightly loitering on the verges of a horrendously busy thoroughfare. For this immaculate Georgian street, my friends, feeds straight into the hustle, bustle and well-toned muscle of London’s street market to the rich and famous, King’s Road.

Step under the cosy wings of The Phoenix and you’re automatically reduced to a quivering pile of leisure. The wallpaper is warming, the fireplace is welcoming, the absence of music is hospitably deafening. There is only one TV and even that is limited to terrestrial; with the sound off. Inside, oak tables mingle with leather-seated booths that chat with walls adorned with big art that coerce with shelve dividers filled with sculpture and pottery. Even the light fittings are trying to get in on the action, the innovative so-and-sos.

Upon this seating and ornaments are the eyes and arses of the clientele, who, it has to be said, are of the rosy-cheek and posh-accent variety. This is ra-ra-ra country, so if you’re easily offended by a Porsche or a Ferrari - be they a car or a lady - you’re probably lost and should not have wandered into this pub in the first place. Now, get back down your own end before we set the dogs on you!

Sitting is the order here. No standing room available. As it is so neatly compacted into this tidy little space, it does have the potential to get a bit hairy if more than one large family congregates. Yet somehow, that makes it more endearing.

The menu is a foodie’s hot weekend in Paris and very much of the time, throwing in words like guinea fowl, salt marsh lamb, truffled artichoke, brown Portland crab, turnip puree and juniper jus. Plus, the menu changes frequently, so foodie wont get bored. If you have the option, the braised red cabbage with any of the dishes - starter, main or dessert - is horrendously gratifying. As is the ever-popular sticky toffee pudding. And how’s this for a starter?! Fresh salmon, capers and grated egg!!

The beer and wine choices are fair yet the wine list is chosen by a Master of Wine, no less (clue in the title there), and includes that Infamous Goose Wild Rock Sauvignon.

Overall, a cosy night out. Bring family, bring friends, bring lovers, bring pets and Martians. The Phoenix could well be a quaint place during summer as you spill out onto the pavement side alley with a Pimms in one hand and your shopping kill in the other. Even Elton ‘hissy fit’ John couldn’t fail to feel relaxed at The Phoenix.