Butler's Wharf Chop House, Bermondsey

Butler's Wharf Chop House
36e Shad Thames
Bermondsey
SE1
020 7403 3403
www.chophouse.co.uk

by H.P. Seuss

We grow weary of elaborate introductions about the "suffering pretentiousness of the author", or at least my nemesis Anonymous does. So these days we stick to the facts, and imagine our Web 2.0-empowered friend's approval at our precision with the truth - something he presumably finds and admires elsewhere in this blogosphere.

So, to the facts: Butler's Wharf Chop House is charmingly located in an attractive wharf next to Tower Bridge. Malcolm Eggs and I pootled along to sample the new breakfast menu and bask in the picture-postcard setting one sunny morning before we had given up on this summer as a damp squib.

Said menu is reassuringly English, with the modern adornments you would expect from an outpost of the Conran empire: kedgeree, benedict, outstanding fresh orange juice (bad fresh orange juice is one of the least documented of breakfast crimes, but like larceny, it can ruin your day). Prices are on the accessible side of expensive.

Malcolm Eggs and I, being creatures of habit, opted for two plates of full E. Here they are now: two ruddy sausages, rubbery bacon, poached eggs less amber than is my preference, charred mushrooms and aromatic tomatoes, all clamouring like shipwreck survivors on an oblong piece of toast. (I took this last quirk to be a nod back to our mediaeval culinary heritage, when bread served as plate). Quality, overall, is on the quotidian side of luxury.

But with the LRB's integgrity in mind, I must own up: this is the one and only time I or anyone else from the LRB has played the "influential blog" card and claimed the meal as complimentary. Before my Web 2.0-empowered friend cries foul, I must stress that the unnaturally attentive service and strange lack of satisfaction that comes from gaining for free what other must pay for not only gave me an insight into the mind of Victoria Beckham, but left me feeling a little awkward. I shall pay next time - and it will be pretty much worth it.