The Refinery is located on the South Bank just off the main tourist route, behind the Tate Modern. The decor is uber cool – modern industrial with wooden tables, big windows, lots of lovely furniture and an open plan kitchen. The restaurant has an informal atmosphere and serves a host of bar food, cocktails and wine flights.
We visited on a Sunday arvo to test drive the roasts which at only £12.95 are a steal. To start we had the Prawn and Lemon Grass Lollipops with Citrus-Soy dipping sauce and the Crab Cakes. We fought over which dish we thought was the winner but we can honestly say the fluffy battered prawns dipped in the citrus-soy sauce were some of the best we’ve tasted. And if you check out our other food reviews you’ll see we’ve eaten our fair share.
For mains we opted for the Roast Belly Pork and Roast Sirloin, both served with a huge tin filled with roast potatoes, homemade Yorkshire puddings, roast carrots, parsnips, red cabbage, broccoli, masedh potatoes and creamed leeks. The most veg we’ve ever been served with a roast dinner and perhaps a little too much. That said it was all tasty, fresh and well seasoned.
You can tell a lot of effort goes into the food, not only because everything is homemade but because you can also see the chefs preparing each dish. The only grumble we had was that the meat was slightly over cooked and a little tougher than we would have liked plus no crackling with belly pork is a crime!
For dessert there was only one option we were ordering, the Black Forest Knicker Bocker Glory – boy do we love a knicker! Served in a tall glass with plenty of cherries, chocolate sponge, chocolate icecream and cream this was a great end to a pleasant meal.
Would we go back? We sure would, those sharing platters served on big chopping boards caught our eye as did the humongus burgers. The Refinery is a nice place to go on a weekend for a relaxing lunch with friends and given the area and settings the prices are pretty damn reasonable too.
110 Southwark Street, SE1
www.therefinerybar.co.uk