The Draft House is a small group of Public Houses which aims to do for beer what our culture has done for food and wine over the past twenty years.
Our new pub, The Tankard (its original 1825 name), was designed especially with a large roof terrace so customers could look over the high wall surrounding the grounds of the notorious Bethlem Insane Asylum (known colloquially as Bedlam) and gawk at the goings on there.
In 1936 the grounds became a park and the asylum moved elsewhere to be replaced by The Imperial War Museum.
The pub, however, abides, and is a place of layered London history.
A young Charlie Chaplin was often dispatched there by his Mother to haul his Pa out of the lounge bar for his supper. Charlie cites the characters he met in Kennington pubs as the great influence which formed his unique brand of maudlin physical comedy. Chaplin Senior was a well-known Actor and Singer who performed often in the music halls of Kennington Road – all sadly now pulled down.
And now the Draft House has arrived.
Lovely Rachel Thomas is in charge and we have made efforts to restore the pub to something close to its original Victorian state. Hopefully with better beer. And a tasteful nod to its music hall / Chaplin past. And there are still some not entirely sane people in the park opposite you can observe from our magnificent roof terrace.
We will have good British cheese, matched with an amazing range of rare bottled beers from the four corners of the globe, and a very, very good Sunday Roast.
I hope to see you at the Bar….
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Great food, customer service was okay only a couple people working and a small place but not much interaction was had. Was nice for a quick stop but probably wouldn’t go back again.
Great option for a beer, especially after a visit to the Imperial War Museum. Here you will find the main beers from the Brewdog brewery and friendly breweries. Great service, pleasant atmosphere and a terrace for warmer days. Cheers! 🍻
With so many decent looking pubs nearby, I'm glad we visited The Tankard and would definitely recommend the place. Nice vibe, amazing food, decent beer and the staff were top drawer! Wish we could've stayed longer and chilled on the roof terrace.
This was a 5/5 experience. We had come to London for the day and was visiting the IWM and upon searching for restaurants nearby the Tankard come up and the food looked nice on the images and and the menu looked lovely. We entered 30 minutes prior to our booking just due to trains and they showed us our seat and it is a lovely little pub. You can tell the food is cooked from scratch, none of it was reheated of frozen, it was delicious! But the people in the pub were very friendly. It's dog friendly, and we even made friends with a little Jug who was so sweet and her owners were super kind. The staff though? Incredible! Best service I have seen in a pub in a long time. They genuinely seemed happy to be there serving the customers. Whoever was working there on 23/4/23 around 1:30-3:30 thank you. You deserve a raise as each member of staff we encountered was LOVELY❤️
Took the kids here for lunch. We had the Wing Wednesday deal and the cheese burger. The chicken wings were still crispy after having been drenched with sauces. That’s always a good sign for me. The fries were nice and crispy too and was a generous portion. The kids loved their meal. I was very impressed with the quality of the burger. Service was excellent, staff were attentive. The bar lady explained about the kids menu portions, so we decided on the adult version instead. It’s a lovely and clean pub with Christmas ambience. Glad l finally tried this place out. Will be back for the roast soon.
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Opening Times
| Mon | 12:00 – 23:00 |
| Tue | 12:00 – 23:00 |
| Wed | 12:00 – 23:00 |
| Thur | 12:00 – 23:00 |
| Fri | 12:00 – 00:00 |
| Sat | 12:00 – 00:00 |
| Sun | 12:00 – 22:30 |
Location
Sorry, we don't have any menus listed at the moment.
London SE1