The Travel Critic

Let’s start with the obvious: this is a slightly narcissistic review. A Southgate reviewing The Southgate? It’s like David Gower critiquing The Gower, or Brad Pitt doing a documentary on Big Pit. The whole thing already smacks of self-regard, so it’s a shame I have to report that the only thing this pub and I share is a name—and a crushing sense of disappointment.

We stopped in for Sunday lunch, that most hallowed of British meals, and what followed was less a roast and more a slow, grey eulogy to the culinary arts. I wish I were exaggerating. When I was a hungover student at university, I used to buy those boil-in-the-bag roast dinners from the discount freezer section—brown meat, beige veg, and a strange oil-slick of Bisto-coloured gravy seeping into everything. And yet those meals—eaten on a stained futon while watching re-runs of Countdown—were Michelin-starred compared to this.

The meat, if it was meat (no one really confirmed), came in the colour and texture of a depressed pigeon. It had the sort of chew that makes you question your life choices. The veg was somehow both overcooked and underdone, as if they’d been confused about whether to boil them or punish them. I prodded a carrot that looked like it had died from embarrassment.

Even the gravy—normally the saviour, the culinary duvet under which a bad roast hides—was thin, bland, and about as warming as a handshake from an estate agent. It didn’t tie anything together. It just sat there, leaking across the plate like the tears of a man who once had hope.

I’m trying to find something nice to say, and I’m struggling. I suppose I didn’t get food poisoning—which is always a win. The pub has walls. The ceiling stayed up. And the table didn’t collapse under the weight of our disappointment. But that’s where the praise ends.

Honestly, most of the things I stand for—flavour, care, seasoning, a vague respect for vegetables—were nowhere to be found here. The Southgate? It’s not great. It’s not even mediocre. It’s a warning. A reminder that sometimes, sharing a name is just a cruel twist of fate.

Rating: 1 out of 5, and that’s me being generous because I still have my gallbladder.