The Avalon

What’s happened to the Avalon??? I’ve gone from a firm fan to an almost detractor. Quiet Friday night drinks with some nibbles … Firstly the cocktails took AGES to be made, OK move on to wine time. Then we ordered some nibbles… Nachos and chicken wings. Not too hard right??? Wrong. Salsa tasted like it was fermented, guacamole tasted worse than cheap supermarket bought. The chicken wings were COLD, and soggy. Sigh. Disappointing. Let’s not mention all the flies

This place is HUGE! Outdoor seating out the front on the main road, bar stools, big tables inside the pub area, a dining area and then another two outdoor seating areas. The large area at the back (you have to go through the dining room!) was the best, with outdoor heating, a bar, big tables and smaller booths and also when we went they had a BBQ and a beer festival with plenty of London ale selections for a very reasonable price of £10 for 6 half pints. Lovely to try them all — not sure about their normal beer selection. Dinner menu looked good however didn’t try and didn’t get to see anyone’s order. Also show the sport on big screens. Would love this to be my local!

Lovely pub with a proper restaurant as well. I had the steak and it was really delicious. Service for a large group was really great. Our waitress was on her toes all night, but did very well to keep a party of about 20 gals well looked after.

Great food, great priced drinks and a nice atmosphere. I lived about a 10 minute walk from here, and would always visit! Attentive staff, and all round nice place for a catch up with friends!

Went here for dinner tonight. Had prawn and chorizo bruschetta and hanger steak with Parmesan fries. The bruschetta was delicious though surprisingly spicy! The steak was nice; not outstanding but good. Couldn’t taste the Parmesan and truffle oil on the fries! Service was good; very pleasant though our server was clearly training. She was nice though and I’d definitely return.

I got the Gorgonzola, pine nut, arugula and pesto pizza for takeaway. For 11.50 quid, it was a bit pricey, but it’s a decent-​sized pizza, so I’d recommend it. It had a little bit too much oil on top, but nothing paper towels wouldn’t fix. The pizza’s flavour was obviously strong and the pine nuts played off the cheese well, but it wasn’t the best pizza I ever had.

Nice beer garden in front where you can have a good time with some friends. The few places in their inner-​court are not as nice and it gets very crowded on the weekends. The inside is typically British with old used furniture, but they miss the touch to make it feel comfortable.

My Girlfriend’s sister was over from Dubai and used to live in London. She hadn’t been to the Avalon in years and wanted to go. It was her last night and wanted to have a nice meal to see her off.
We arrived around 8pm on Saturday a the atmosphere seemed lively and had high hopes for an enjoyable evening. Everyone seemed to be having a good time in the pub area and we made our way through to the restaurant.
We were greeted an shown to our table. As we sat down, the table was shaking quite badly and asked of waiter if he could slide something underneath. He concluded that it was the table top its self and moved us to a booth.
Great, no dramas.
We waited for a while to place our order but it was a busy Saturday night so we were relaxed and had our order ready in full. We order a really nice red and some appetizers, i had the fish cake and GF’s sister order a salad. The GF just wanted a main. We waited for nearly 30 mins for an our first course. It was only when the manager swung by our table that we asked how long our food was, he went to check. He came back and apologized for the wait and brought my fish cake. The salad never arrived.
We then waited for a long time for our mains. It was about 920 at this point. Our wine was finished and everybody was getting impatient.
It didn’t seem like we were the only ones waiting as we looked around, other tables that had order before us weren’t served either.
When the food finally came, GF’s sister was really disappointed in her food. She had order fish and got basically two bits of skin.
She had to make a complaint and explain that this wasn’t acceptable for any restaurant to serve this.
On a positive I had order the calf liver and it was really nice.
The manager came over at the end of our meal and apologized and said because of how busy the restaurant was the service had suffered and gave us a 25% of our bill.
Again no dramas and he seemed very sincere. we paid and left.
My biggest problem always with this is communication. If our food will be a little longer, tell us. Don’t ignore us. We’ll be fine — we’ll order another bottle of wine or something. It just common sense and good service to keep guests informed.
I think if this place was quieter we would have had a better experience. All in all this place is probably great but we had a terrible time

I visit the Avalon and have found it to always be a lively and entertaining venue with good food. My only criticism perhaps is that often on a Friday night you will struggle to find s table that doesn’t have a reserved sign on it– it’s a bit of a pain when you can’t find somewhere to sit yet there are loads of empty tables. Saying that, the service is good and you never have to wait very long. Looking forward to the gardening opening up for summer xx

Really liked the size and ambiance in here on a Sunday afternoon. Good mix of young, kinda hip looking people and families.
We went for Sunday roast and my god I ate the biggest Yorkshire pudding I have ever seen. I had the pork which had some really great crackling on it. The veg in my opinion were just okay. Not as good as mam’s.that’s my benchmark: my mam’s Sunday roast. Super hard to beat ;)
Overall good roast but would try for something else on their menu next time (the menu looks so amazing).
Price wise it’s average London prices.
Interested to check out the ambiance on an evening! Imagine it to be cool!

Really upscale pub with fresh pints that do the trick. I love places like this, so I’m definitely sold. Don’t know when I’ll be back, but I will when I can.

I met a friend here for dinner a few weeks ago. I definitely rate this as one of the best pubs in Clapham. The massive garden out back is great for a pint in the sun and they have a really good selection of real ales. I had the burger huge! My friend had the fish and chips, which looked equally good. Service was faultless. Will definitely be returning.

Poor quality pub lunch Great place for drinks in the evening but the Sunday roast is more than disappointing. I sent my food back twice. The first time the beef was almost raw and the second time the potatoes were burnt. Not impressed at all

i tried there pie and pint meal over nationa pie week and it was lovely
i had the leak and chicken pie which had red chillies in it which gave it a good kick. hubby had the firshermans pie and it was lovely.
A really lovely atmoshpere here with an eclectic mix of furniture

While this is one of the nicer pubs in Clapham South, I do agree with Craig M it is a bit pretentious. The crowd is loud, inside and out, so it’s not the quiet pub to escape to for a chat. On our most recent visit we went for a friends 30^th Birthday in the garden, my only complaint here was the service.
This was slow for such a large party, and when I finally decided to order food at 8:32pm I was told the kitchen closes at 9:30pm and they stop taking food orders outside an hour before.
I was told I could go inside and eat there, but the fact of the matter was we were already all sitting outside, and we had only missed their deadline by minutes. Hardly accommodating for a group celebrating their birthday and already racking up a large bill. Customer service — ‘nul points’.

The Avalon is situated a short walk from Clapham South tube station and is a handy place to start a mini crawl. For some reason I’ve never seen the place quiet (which is a good sign) but it makes getting served and finding a place to stand indoors annoying.
The outdoor area is the place to be even on cold winter nights as you always get a seat around the picnic tables and have a conversation without shouting.

I came here when they were offering 50% food for facebook and was very pleased. Service was great, nice comfortable environment, nice and reasonably-​priced food (made cheap with the deal), and good wine choices. Wish I had room for pudding cause they looked delicious!
–Goat cheese tartlet — Great flavor but didn’t like the cool temperature
–Fennel soup — Simple and tasty. Served with delicious bread
–Lamb loin — Really well cooked. Perfect portion. Pretty good flavor. White bean purée wasn’t super-​tasty but still a nice accompaniment. Could have used a little more mint.
–Squid ink linguine with crab & chili — Decadent. Starter portion was perfect for a main after having a starter.

Meh.
Nothing terribly wrong with The Avalon, so long as you’ve got a particularly strong ‘wanker barrier’ that you can use to shield yourself from the wannabe Hooray Henries and Henriettas. You know the ones, those who can’t actually afford to live in Fulham.
But hey, it’s tastefully done out, has some decent seating outside and from what I saw, the food looks decent if not a little try hard. It’s got a separate dining area out the back of the pub. I’ve heard their Sunday roast is not to be scoffed at.
Owned by the same company as the Bolingbrooke and Stonhouse in nearby Clapham/​Battersea.

I had a lovely summer’s evening at The Avalon, a gastropub in Clapham South with a very surprisingly large and roomy back garden; and one that probably even the Queen herself would approve of for her own garden parties. I was there with a bunch of other Qypers (see the reviews below!), and we had a great time learning a few BBQ tips from the head chef of Avalon.
While I can’t provide an opinion on the food as we had a special home-​style BBQ menu, the usual dishes that passed by our table did look very appetising, and comes in big portions too. Prices are reasonable for London, but I think the main attraction of this place is neither food nor drink, but the garden.
Thus if you are in need of a place to hang out with friends or family or you want to hire a private (and it really is private!) garden area, complete with a BBQ, The Avalon is the way to go!
Reviewed by The London Insider

Picked the wrong day to come here, definitely. Major sporting event craziness meant saying excuse me twice to people I was trying to get past before having to nearly knock their drinks out of their hands anyway as they didn’t move. The only respite from the sport would have been the far too posh restaurant area at the back. In the end being cold was the lesser of the two evils and so the seats outside got an early season occupation (despite the heaters not being on).
The beer was quite decent mind you. I did enjoy my pint of Otter bitter. I just wish I could have enjoyed it somewhere else.
Very different to the pub I remember being here ⁷⁄₈ years back.