We’ve all been there: a decrepit old English pub with no seating space watching England losing another football match for the umpteenth time. Watching live sports in bars and pubs can be a taxing affair. Thankfully with the opening of Greenwood, you need to suffer no longer. It is a pub, restaurant and sports lounge that is open 7 days a week from breakfast to post-theatre meals with no pretension and plenty of live sporting action.
It is housed in the Nova building which is rapidly developing a reputation for Victoria as the go to place for culinary fulfilment. Its main bar has four overhanging copper beer tanks serving Long Arm Brewing Co. craft beers. The ground floor also has a blink brow bar as well as a barbershop, so you can enjoy a fine brew whilst getting a haircut and watching the latest football match all at the same time. Whilst upstairs, they have an American 8-Ball pool table and two shuffleboard tables.
What of the food you might wonder? It was quite a surprise to find a decent-sized crowd enjoying their Sunday bottomless brunch menu recently. There are plenty of filling options and it is only £25 for 3 courses. For starters, we tried poached eggs matched with a rather peculiar marmite hollandaise, which gave the dish an added kick and in true marmite fashion, I loved the dish whilst my guest hated the sauce.
My guest opted for the tasty sounding, courgette, minted ricotta, artichoke and parmesan pizza. White-sauce based pizzas can sometimes be rather bland-tasting, but the addition of minted ricotta gave the dish some vibrancy and it was very well-layered with ingredients to ensure that it was a filling vegetarian dish.
This was also the case for their falafel burger. It came with a soft brioche bun, a sizeable chickpea patty and dreamy, melted halloumi. It had a degree of heat due to the harissa and earthy tastes due to the tahini mayo. Also coming with a healthy portion of chips, this is one of those bottomless brunches that probably means no dinner that evening.
If you have enough space left in your stomach, then do try their well-constructed fried apple pie with cinnamon ice cream. The apple pie crust was fresh-tasting and filled with delicious apples and the cinnamon tastes from the ice cream made the dish even more aromatic tasting.
With the opening of the musical, Hamilton soon in Victoria, we can see Greenwood going from strength to strength in the coming months and years.
baldwin@townfish.com