It closed earlier this year and has since been taken over by Phil Winser and James Gummer, the team behind Notting Hill’s The Pelican and, in the Cotswolds, The Bull, in Charlbury. And now, just a couple of weeks after reopening, the place is abuzz once more, diners and drinkers spilling out into the street on the balmiest of Monday nights. There’s a grill room upstairs, but that’s not open for a few weeks, so we sit in the corner of the ground-floor pub, a gentle breeze wafting through the open doors. We eat raw vegetables grown on their farm in Charlbury, the first thrust of late spring – tiny carrots, peas, radishes with their peppery leaves and lettuce, all dipped in a ‘garden dressing’ made from carrot tops and herb clippings, as lushly fertile as the Green Man. There’s a three-cheese and Branston toastie, burnished and oozing, every bit the equal of the beauty at The Devonshire. Lamb ribs are slow cooked, then finished on the grill, so the fat renders and the meats lips off the bone. Mains are every bit as fine; a thick slab of sweet ham, covered in a gentle parsley sauce and topped with a fried egg, the white frazzled, the yolk just set. It comes with a huge bowl of French fries, crisp and golden. Serious, exalted pub grub. Cheese and onion pie, shaped like a savoury pudding, is stuffed with red Leicester, Cheddar and Stilton, and just about contained in the shortest of shortcrust pastries. A pile of parsley salad, lustily dressed and studded with capers, ensures things don’t get overwhelmingly rich. There’s a simplicity to the cooking here, a confidence, that feels little need to show off. The staff are lovely, the beers well-kept and even the natural wine, a Spanish El Pinto Palomino, tastes lively and thrilling, rather than dirtily funky. This team transformed The Pelican, a pub I thought could never succeed. With The Hero, it looks like they’ve done it again. Rating: About £25 per head. The Hero Maida Vale, 55 Shirland Road, London W9; theherow9.com
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