Brondes Age, Kilburn

Ladies, Gentlemen and Attention Seekers:

Let me be clear from the outset. Or rather, let me reassure you that I neither work for, nor am paid by or nor am anyway associated with what I consider to be a not-half-bad place to enjoy a pint (or whatever tipple takes your fancy - mine's wine by the way) on any given day of the week.

Most people who have pretensions (note I didn't say "a proclivity") to drinking in their preferred local - or sometimes their locale - will have, if not try to push, an unreasonable if predictable bias about what drinks and venues "do it" for them time and again. I say "predictable" because it wouldn't stand to reason to comment negatively about a place one hangs out in - and I do mean "hang out in" as, let's admit it, in Kilburn we don't exactly "patronise" our venues (not until they start offering membership schemes - stalls, upper circle and balcony seating, for example), nor "hold office hours" in them (unless you happen to sell flashy cigarette lighters or DVDs), nor hold shares in the businesses based on the amounts of alcohol we consume (if you drink, you've already paid your price, and the reward is how the booze works for you).

I also say "unreasonable", because we only take into consideration - or least we tend only to take into consideration - our last drinking/eating/outing experience in isolation. Who hasn't had some pretty drastic night in some otherwise pretty familiar if not regular watering hole? At best, these are anomalies that often come down to our individual or collective excesses rather than any single statutory or consumer right violation.

In fact, who can't recall having a good time in one and the same place where we might have experienced a 7.5 on the Barmy Scale (BS), to say nothing of the probably myriad times we couldn't even recall at all without the assistance of a hypnotherapist, because we drank so much that it all went to oblivion (for better or worse)?

With this in mind, perhaps you will think better of my take on the Brondes: which is to say, that it is the only place that "tries harder" while it attempts to remain true to itself. The Kilburn, which, by this logic, doesn't qualify: it's had more revamps and facelifts in a shorter span of time than a small-time drag queen. (And what's with those exhaust-fume arm-rest ledges that give onto the vapid fumes of the High Road?) Likewise Powers (though for years it needed a gutting, both of its in-the-open drug-dealing clientele, and management and furnishing, to say nothing of its currently exorbitant prices) and The Golden Egg. McGoverns, by contrast, has been for years been one of those kinds of pubs in Kilburn (together with the Collin Cambell, Cock Tavern and Coopers Arms) that couldn't do anything to change its looks, service or appeal with anything short of an all-out demolishing, brewery owned or not. (Are they in touch with anything?) And Biddy's - it doesn't even know where it is on Google Maps, let alone the space-time continuum that most of us - forgive me if I call by its true name - call R-E-A-L-I-T-Y! The pubs further on down the High Road wouldn't know change if they got it by the bagful at the Bingo Hall (an altogether better drinking venue by far, certainly better than The Old Bell or The Red Lion).

Trying harder is the key: and the Brondes Age would seem to have it in spades. Over the years the place continues to expand, adding, little by little, more to its very diverse repertoire. There isn't a cocktail they can't make; the food is unpretentious, consistently served and served in portions that no other pub can match - even the addition of pizzas and pastas on their menu rival those of specialists like Casareccia and Osteria del Ponte (formerly, if gladly no more, The Bridge). It's staff are conscientious, the management seem to be fair and firm and security (though it has its work cut out for it, considering the range of crazies that recrudesce in Kilburn like a rash) even it looks like its got its stuff together. The range of goings-on at the Brondes Age is also pretty good, too. We're talking: bands and DJs, big games with no hassles, disco parties, spaces set aside for massive dos, breakfast opening hours, Sunday roasts, late nights, extended nights, a vast outside patio (which is ultra smoker friendly if that happens to be your thing), participation in local events, year-round opening (and closing) hours that shut out all other Kilburn venues, and always a consistent, thriving and returning customer base - and all with the same staff, doing the same good job, day in and day out (no one stays where they aren't loved, staff included).

In fact, if things continue to progress the way they have done, it wouldn't surprise me if National Rail decided to open a mini-stop just before Brondesbury station with special access to the Brondes Age... Which would require either a special entrance from the roof, if not a rooftop beer garden, neither of which I would put past this sane, safe, savoury and without doubt Kilburn's best bar and restaurant.

16 Dec 2007 22:16