The Churchill Arms

“Fast and furious”, this “atmospheric” Thai stalwart behind a “bustling” Kensington pub is “always crowded”, thanks to its reputation for “lovely” food at “super cheap” prices; it’s “best to book”.... read more

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The Churchill Arms is a lively pub on Kensington Church Street which has a dining room at the back serving Thai food. The dining room is packed with hanging baskets of flowers and its walls are cluttered with a distinctly eclectic collection of items, from assorted photos through to a stuffed toucan and a mounted butterfly collection. The tables have marble tabletops without tablecloths and paper napkins. This is not refined dining: there are no starters (and a couple of bought-in desserts), dishes arrive when they are ready and you get a dining slot of just one hour, which in fact is ample given the speed with which the food appears. 

The dishes are a mix of stir-fried dishes and Thai curries, all priced at just £6.95, including rice. There was a wine list of sorts, though it was basic and without vintages. Ramato Pinot Grigio was £18.40 a bottle for a wine that you can pick up retail for around £9, The South African A Few Good Men Cabernet Sauvignon was listed at £19.20 for a wine that costs around £7 retail, while in what I will charitably assume was a nod to the pub’s name (Winston Churchill liked Pol Roger champagne), Pol Roger non-vintage champagne was available at just £45 for wine that will cost you £31 in the shops. 

We tried pad Thai noodles, which had good texture and were pleasantly spiced (comfortably 1/10) as well as pad prik i.e. stir-fried prawns with chill, onion and spring onion. The prawns were properly cooked, though the onions seemed to me undercooked, but there was a pleasant chilli bite to the dish (just about 1/10). Best was a green curry made from coconut milk and Thai herbs and spices with bamboo shoots. The blend of spices was very good, the flavours nicely balanced (2/10). Rice with this was also fine (1/10). Service was efficient and pleasant.

This is not the kind of place to make a trek to, but it was clearly full of returning regulars, and at just £18 a head including drinks was very reasonably priced. An enjoyable local restaurant.

Andy's profile     Other reviews by Andy     Andy likes    

A haven on Kensington Church Street. Decent beer, no nouveau designer stuff, it is what it is, a very nice pub. It has been updated sympathetically but it has not lost its old charm. It still retains just enough interesting nooks, crannies and hairy old drinkers.The Thai food was top notch the last time I eat here but that was 5 years ago to be fair.

Peter's profile     Other reviews by Peter     Peter likes    

The Churchill Arms Pub is a five-minute walk from Notting Hill tube station, on Kensington Church Street. When you first walk in, it looks like yet another run-down, run-of-the-mill pub. You smell beer everywhere, and you see faded red carpeting and dark, heavy wood furniture and paneling. But what’s great about the Churchill Arms is that in the back, there’s a really delicious and cheap Thai restaurant. Walking into the Thai restaurant part of the pub feels like walking into an enchanted garden. There’s a riot of flowering plants hanging from the ceiling, a stone tiled floor, and the sound of water running from an indoor fountain. The restaurant is always crowded, but the wait is short, probably because the menu offers only twenty standard Thai dishes (and no appetizers). I got a prawn pad thai for £6. That’s about 2/3 the price of my lunch every day at Canary Wharf.

You might think the Thai-restaurant-in-a-pub concept is really unusual, but surprise, surprise, there are a lot of “Thai pubs” in London. I’m not sure how this phenomenon came about. Probably a Thai family took over a pub and when that place took off, other Thai families followed the pattern? Anyway, of the Thai pubs we’ve been to, the Churchill Arms is my favorite for the charm of its dining area, the freshness of the dishes, and the extremely low cost. My one complaint is that when the restaurant serves you something “spicy,” it never actually is.

An's profile     Other reviews by An     An likes    

London Pubs Group Tour of Notting Hill, Kensington and Bayswater

Built in the Victorian era but given a complete internal refit between the wars, this pub is not a listed building but is on the London Regional Inventory. There would have been separate rooms of course at that time but although the partitions have gone, leaving a U-shaped drinking area wrapping round the servery, most of the rest of the c.1930 work survives.

The windows are very attractive with their canted bays and charming art-nouveau-inspired stained glass details. Then there is the bar counter which has two distinctly different designs from the counter front in the left-hand parts. Most of it has panels with triple mouldings round them but the smaller, right-hand part is much plainer. This makes it clear that they must have been separated by a partition and, if you look closely, you can see in the window-sill a small piece of patching where the old screen stood.

The walls are extensively panelled and there are a couple of pretty tiled fireplaces. There are two sets of snob-screens mounted on the counter but their age is a moot point. When the present licensee came in the mid-1980s they formed a continuous run but it's hard to believe such an intrusive feature would have been installed in the 1930s when people favoured unencumbered counters. For a Fullers pub it was not surprising that London Pride, ESB and Chiswick were available, plus a seasonal 3.8% 'Swing Low' which was no doubt being appreciated by, and pitched at, the many of those watching the rugby on TV.

http://www.camranorthlondon.org.uk/londonpubsgroup/crawls.htm

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