This past Friday, I met up with two girlfriends, Cindy and Jessica, at my house. The night was to be simple. Have dinner and some drinks at a restaurant near my house. Given the option of either Mexican (El Iris Taco) or GastroPub (The York), they chose the GastroPub because they had never heard of the word before. Frankly neither had I until I moved into my "up and coming" neighborhood. They asked me and I really didn't know how to respond so I turned their attention to my hubby who explained. This conversation left me hungry for more, so I took to the internet to find our what GastroPub means. Here is what I found....
There’s no single defining element at work, though I’ve heard people trying to argue that things like serving handmade/hand-cut chips, or having a chalkboard with food specials, are the sole feature making a place a ‘gastropub’. Perhaps, though, they could feature on a checklist we might come up with, or a mathematical equation?
What It’s Not
Even the OED entry errs on the side of vagueness when grappling with the gastropub:
“gastropub, n. Brit. A public house which specializes in serving high-quality food.”
While one might quibble about how to define “high-quality” food, let’s start with what the gastropub is not. It’s not a restaurant. Which means that restaurants that happen to be located in former pub buildings, even really striking ones retaining their old signage and name — for example, Konstam at The Prince Albert (St Pancras WC1) — do not in any sense count.
The gastropub is, then, quite rightly, a pub.1 But how, after all, do we define a “pub” in the first place? We could say that if you can go in and just have a drink, it’s a pub for our purposes. You may not feel entirely comfortable just ordering a drink (these are gastro-pubs for a reason), but it should be possible without any undue attitude on behalf of the venue.
Then again, this doesn’t take account of the differences between a bar and a pub. One place which is local to me, where a person can happily just have a drink but which I don’t think of as a pub, is Masons (Ladywell SE13, fig. 50). It’s in a single-roomed former pub building; it even has a pub-like name (from its original name, The Freemasons’ Tavern). However, it’s fairly obviously a restaurant as well, and not a gastropub. There are many other places — whether housed in former pub buildings or not — that bill themselves as “bar/restaurant” or “restaurant/bar” which are, in essence, restaurants.
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So there you have it. If you are eager to check out what this means come visit us in our "up and coming" neighborhood and me and the hub would be happy to introduce you to our local Gastopub called The York. You haven't enjoyed beer until you have enjoyed it in a Gastropub.
There’s no single defining element at work, though I’ve heard people trying to argue that things like serving handmade/hand-cut chips, or having a chalkboard with food specials, are the sole feature making a place a ‘gastropub’. Perhaps, though, they could feature on a checklist we might come up with, or a mathematical equation?
What It’s Not
Even the OED entry errs on the side of vagueness when grappling with the gastropub:
“gastropub, n. Brit. A public house which specializes in serving high-quality food.”
While one might quibble about how to define “high-quality” food, let’s start with what the gastropub is not. It’s not a restaurant. Which means that restaurants that happen to be located in former pub buildings, even really striking ones retaining their old signage and name — for example, Konstam at The Prince Albert (St Pancras WC1) — do not in any sense count.
The gastropub is, then, quite rightly, a pub.1 But how, after all, do we define a “pub” in the first place? We could say that if you can go in and just have a drink, it’s a pub for our purposes. You may not feel entirely comfortable just ordering a drink (these are gastro-pubs for a reason), but it should be possible without any undue attitude on behalf of the venue.
Then again, this doesn’t take account of the differences between a bar and a pub. One place which is local to me, where a person can happily just have a drink but which I don’t think of as a pub, is Masons (Ladywell SE13, fig. 50). It’s in a single-roomed former pub building; it even has a pub-like name (from its original name, The Freemasons’ Tavern). However, it’s fairly obviously a restaurant as well, and not a gastropub. There are many other places — whether housed in former pub buildings or not — that bill themselves as “bar/restaurant” or “restaurant/bar” which are, in essence, restaurants.
****
So there you have it. If you are eager to check out what this means come visit us in our "up and coming" neighborhood and me and the hub would be happy to introduce you to our local Gastopub called The York. You haven't enjoyed beer until you have enjoyed it in a Gastropub.
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