Rating: 3/5
Address
Bermondsey Wall East,
SE16 4TY
Type of Place:
Old Justice is a very big (yet simultaneously strangely cramped) mock-Tudor pub in Bermondsey, near the river. While the front half is a conventional pub, the back half is a restaurant that does a mix of Korean and basic English food.
The area has been highly yuppified of late, but there seems not to have been any effect on the pub's clientele. The restaurant, on the other hand, caters for a diverse bunch of young Asians and many locals as well.
Food:
Well, the English-style pub food is crap, really. At least, it's unapologetically British -- overboiled, cheap, and bland. For 10 pounds you can do an awful lot better in London these days.
The point, though, is the Korean food. This is pretty good but has a definite European bent. Pajeun, while eminently acceptable, had a strangely English flavor and dak duigim came in a decidedly Western lavory sauce. It's hard to tell if this is a crafty attempt to bring the people of Bermondsey on board, or whether it's just that there aren't any Korean food stores in the area. Either way, it works quite well.
Atmosphere:
The atmosphere of the pub half is everything you expect from an old, un-gentrified London pub. In other words it's clannish, hostile, cramped, vaguely alarming, and full of rectangular people in Umbro shirts.
The restaurant half, reached by a side entrance (so you don't have to go through the real pub) is slightly grubby and feels like a waiting room.
The garden, right at the back, is very nice with flowers and shade. The entire experience is like passing from Inferno, through Purgatorio, to Paradiso.
Service:
Nervous Korean students seemed to figure highly in the staff lineup.
Unique Point:
Old Justice is, unquestionably, the only large mock-Tudor pub in south-east London that is also a Korean restaurant.