The Antelope — Restaurant in London

🚇 Tooting Broadway 🍺 £5.25 Pravha

The Antelope is located on busy Mitcham Road in the heart of Tooting. The nearest Tube is Tooting Broadway, it is only a two minute walk to get here.

This pub was built in 1871 and started life as The Foresters Arms. In 1932, this where a meeting took place to create the Tooting & Mitcham United Football team. In 2009, the pub was taken over by Antic and renamed The Antelope.

This is a huge three room pub that has some amazing original and inter-war features. The main bar is located as you enter and has a horshoe shaped servey and an ornate back bar with an original ’Barclays Beers’ sign. At the back of the main bar is a dining area which has Georgian wall panels, dark oak beams and has a slightly Tudor feel to it. Just off the dining area is the Rankin Room, this may have been a Billiard Room at some point. This room has a distinct inter-war feel with its wall paneling, parquet floor and wonderful high ceiling. At the back of the pub is the beer garden which has a covered space with a TV.

The beer lineup was impressive and had an excellent selection of beers, ciders and seven cask ales. I decided on a pint of Pravha, my pint was decent, price point was reasonable at just over a fiver. The food menu was a mix of traditional pub grub mains and American/Mediterranean inspired snacks and sharers, Fish & Chips costs £14, Roasts are available on a Sunday.

I arrived just after 2pm on a warm Saturday afternoon in April. The main bar had a large group in, the dining area was quiet and there were a few lads watching the Newcastle v Spurs game in the back room, the beer garden was busy. The overall atmosphere was convivial, this pub has a lovely aura to it. I had a little chat with the Guv’nor, top fella.

I read last week that 13 Antic pubs had gone into administration, one of them being @theantelopesw17 . I hope and pray that this outstanding boozer is saved, it would be a travesty if this pub has to close its doors. I absolutely loved visiting this pub, this is one of my favourites this year and a must visit for all London pub fans.

ℹ️ Info correct on...

We are visiting the London area and had our hearts set on a traditional Sunday Pub dinner. As we couldn’t make it by 6:00pm, we were anticipating disappointment that we’d missed our chance. Happily, The Antelope serves this delicious tradition until 9:00pm! My party of 7 enjoyed much of what this fine establishment has to offer and we thoroughly enjoyed everything including the staff, the ambiance, and, of course, the food and drink!

Let’s start with the staff. We were warmly greeted and seated promptly. The bartender, drink server, and server who took our food order were all friendly, warm, and helpful and went out of their way to make us feel welcome. The ambiance is warm and inviting with just enough classic touches to make us Yanks feel we’d stepped into our vision of a classic British Pub yet with enough touches from their recent remodel to make it feel as light and airy as you’d like. We didn’t eat in the beer garden but, after seeing it, we intend to return to enjoy this outside area as well!

We tried the 28 day aged beef, the chicken dinner, and the many sides that came with it as well as an appetizer of pigs in a blanket (my son’s favorite part of the meal). For me, the standouts were the chicken (outstanding!) and the cheesy cauliflower side (delicious!!) as well as the sticky toffee pudding (amazing butterscotch). Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their meals and left satisfied. We enjoyed several drinks from wine to Mai Tais and martinis, to amazing ciders and beers. All were superb!!

All told, our party of 7 indulged themselves and I was shocked at how low the total bill came to! I was prepared for it to be almost twice as much.

All in all, it was a very welcome end to our first day in London (and my wife’s and my 34th anniversary to boot-which resulted in a complimentary bottle of wonderful Prosecco to top off an already terrific night).

I cannot recommend The Antelope highly enough and look forward to our return which I’m sure will be far...

We pre-booked Christmas Dinner for six of us, including one vegan and one coeliac. Four days in advance we were told that the brownie vegan dessert option was no longer available - surely that's time enough to make some more?? Guess they don't make their own food nor order pre made brownies from anywhere nearby? When we arrived we were told someone in another party who had chosen the brownie too had cancelled, so their brownie was now available, happy days. However, the advertised vegan starter (a vegan version of a vegetarian starter of mushroom, toast and cheese) was described by the server as not really a vegan starter as they had no vegan cheese nor vegan bread, therefore it would be "just a mushroom". So it really shouldn't have been on the menu . The vegan main was undercooked and lacked flavour and we had to ask for extra gravy for the Christmas Dinner but otherwise the mains were fine. At dessert time the server came to apologise that there was no vanilla ice cream left, they also didn't have any cream nor custard. We asked if they (or we!) couldn't pop across the road to Tesco to get some ice cream or if there wasn't anything the chef could do. We were told the chef could make "something like cream" which turned out to be custard and was completely fine. The server said as a gesture for the issues we would not be charged the surcharge for the steak we'd ordered. When the bill came they hadn't taken off the £60 we'd already paid and they'd charged us for the non-existent...