Battersea Mess And Music Hall

We wanted a solid Sunday roast. Something hot. Something tasty. Something meaty. Something delicious. We wanted to experience British tradition. And this place was NOT it.
We received a large plate, with 3 thinly shaved pieces of roast on it, with a sad pile of vegetables. I’ve seen pics posted up here, and I assure you, it was really thin! I got 2 slices, but the bf felt bad and passed half his piece over. It was overdone. Gross. Flavorless. It was £11 which is supposed to be cheap, but I really felt ripped off. I’ve had much better roasts for that price. We were so hungry, that we just went to Brick Lane instead for salt beef sandwiches and apple turnovers. Now that’s a meal.

Best night out you’ll ever have. Love it!

Of a rare free Sunday afternoon, me and the Mrs booked ourselves a table with a few friends for a bit of Sunday Lunch.
It was lush. I’ve never been one for going to places where your food comes piled up in the middle of the plate with a small bit of sauce around the edges, but this place is an exception to the rule.
The Battersea Mess and Music Hall is a beautiful, cool and sleek pub that manages to pull off trendy and a little bit kitsch without being plain lame and try hard.
There’s one veggie option on the Sunday Lunch menu, lentil roast with the trimmings. As I mentioned the presentation is a little bit — not what I’m use to — but the food was lovely. A beautiful thick veggie gravy and vege nicely prepared. The roasties were to die for, but I do have a complaint about the yorkshire. You have to pay an extra £1 for a yorkshire for your roast. Pssh. And I hated it. It was a bit greasy for me and tasted like the dodgy batter on a chinese prawn ball. Saying that, the Mrs liked it, so it could just be me.
Aside from that it was lovely, the bar had a good range of beers on tap and it’s a wonderful place to catch up with old friends over a pint and a roast. The service was very friendly and attentive for this sort of venue.
I’d defiantly come back to experience the music and nightlife.

I don’t often venture to that side of the Thames, and I’ve been known to be a little bit regionalist towards the Southrons. But I have to admit, BMMH (no, it’s not kinky, nor is it the latest in legal highs) is an awesome space and a really good pub. I was amazed at being in a pub and not feeling crammed in the slightest — quite a feat. Also, the décor is what can only be described as quirky, but hey, it’s interesting.
We went on a Monday evening for pub quiz, supplemented by £10 burger-​and-​beer deal which, as you’d expect, was far superior to the somewhat cheaper and drier Wetherspoon’s deal. The beer selection isn’t huge, but the alses they do have are interesting — there was a tasty, nutty porter on tap to keep me interested. The burgers are pretty decent, not world-​shattering, but plenty to love. And they do a vegan option, for anyone so inclined. The pub quiz was challenging and, despite the collective number of years of higher education on our table, we still came at the lower end of the pack. I keep forgetting that all-​scientist teams generally suck at pub quiz. I really like their Tube station wordplay round, which involves deciphering of cryptic station names.
The only thing that detracted from my evening was some immense, never-​ending (I kid you not, about 10 solid minutes’ worth) of PDA from a mid-​late 20s couple in the corner. It was horrendous, and just as he was about to get up and go to the bar, she’d pull on his tie and proceed to have a second bite at the proverbial apple. It was like watching a cat burying its face in a bowl of food, or me burying my face in a bowl of noodles. Srsly ppl, sort it out. And no, I haven’t taken a star off for that, but I feel that the staff maybe should have intervened since it was really ruining the ambience, what with the faint slurping noises.
Of course, I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing live music here yet, but in due course, in due course.

I liked this place. I could potentially love this place, but I don’t live nearby and I doubt I’ll be back to really fine-​tune the experience. We showed up halfway through the final game of Six Nations, so it was packed and shouty in the big hall area. If England hadn’t been totally blowing it, we would have crammed ourselves in to cheer.
Instead, we grabbed a table nearer to the bar. Meantime on tap anywhere instantly makes me like a pub better. We also ordered dinner. Burgers were alright — basic pub burgers and you can’t specify how you’d like it cooked. The veggie burger was good. They were out of fish and chips. We shared the meat platter. The pickles were amazzzing and the meats were good, at about the level you’d expect at a pub. We enjoyed the music, which seemed to be played by someone our age (i.e. closer to 30 than 20). It was a very relaxed evening, but I probably wouldn’t return for dinner. Definitely would waste more time drinking here, though.

Meat and music? Sounds like a brilliant combination to me! After hearing quite a bit about Battersea Mess & Music Hall («BMMH») from Erica U, I took her up on her invitation for a Sunday Roast, some scrabble, and potentially a few tunes. This was made even more impressive by the fact that her invite (and my acceptance) was made at roughly 2am on a Sunday morning when we were both a few sheets to the wind. I think the sheer fact that our texts were mostly in English is cause for celebration and maybe a medal or two. But I digress.
Q&D Summary — As usual, for the detailed epic, drop me a line or check out the blog
BMMH has that feel of a place with more regulars that walk-​ins and it’s easy to see why after spending a little time there. There is plenty of seating and you get a great feel of space. The noise level rarely gets above a background buzz and the wait staff have found that perfect balance of being attentive but not obtrusive and somehow always have a soft smile for you.
The key bits to note:
1) If you want to get a roast, make sure you call up in the morning to reserve sufficient quantities. The roast is so popular that they frequently sell out but they are happy to hold some for you until the evening hours if you so desire
2) Yes, the roast (£12−13) is as good as the hype although after the anticipation I was so hungry that I’m pretty sure I could have eaten two
3) They have tons of board games but you are welcome to bring your own
4) There is live music every Sunday which you can enjoy after your roast for £4 entry
Overall, an excellent way to spend a Sunday evening and recover from the bad life decisions of Saturday night… thanks for the invite Erica!

Spellbinding music, superb food, friendly staff, quirky interior and a great range of beer. The Battersea Mess and Music Hall has firmly established itself as the venue for my Sunday evening ritual of late:
Rock up at 4−5pm. Tuck into one of their delicious roasts for approx £12. Roasts are oh-​so-​easy to over-​cook, but here the meat and veg are prepared and presented perfectly. Accompany with any one of their excellent choice of pints: there’s Meantime London Lager, various ales from small UK breweries, Blue Moon and other specialist US beer. My favourite at present is an excellent German wheat beer they have on tap.
Then it’s up to the music hall upstairs for the live music starting at 6pm. First thing you’ll notice are the candles on either side of each of the stairs lighting the way skyward. At the top is a person at a desk selling the tickets — a mere £4 for four acts! The music hall itself is huge. Far bigger than the tiny ‘music rooms’ found in most London pubs offering live music, the music hall here measures perhaps 30m long by 8m wide by 6m high. Huge. At one end is a large stage for the musicians, equipped with two large loudspeakers facing the audience. The rest of the hall is filled with sofas, tables and padded chairs for the audience to sit and lit by candles (other than two spotlights shining on to the stage).
When the music starts, it tends to grab you with the first notes played. The acoustics are excellent, in welcome contrast to the muffled sounds at the dingy music rooms in other pubs. The young, brooding frontmen can sometimes come across like Ethan Hawke in Reality Bytes, but generally the standard of musicianship is high and I’ve found myself listening to the acts on youtube later on in the week. First it was the amazing vocals of Liz Lawrence, then the stunning Dan Hutchins and band, and finally, the rapturously received, harmonising and standing ovation-​treated Ryan O Reilly Band.
Having lived in the area I can confidently say there’s nothing like this nearby. And having traipsed around many another pub with ‘music rooms’, I can also say the Battersea Mess and Music Hall is comfortably the best such pub ‘n live music hall I’ve been to.
Like the idea of great food, booze, live music for £1 an act, friendly service, candlelight and comfy chairs to sink into? Get thee to the Battersea Mess and Music Hall on Sunday evening!

Here’s an update to my previous 4 star review.
The bar is great, the staff is helpful and really friendly to demanding people (totally not me). The food is great, the burger with bone marrow (which I don’t like) is really really delicious and juicy and is accompanied by a tomato relish that is like ketchup upgrade 2.0. But the real winner are the roasts.
The lamb roast is divine and should be pre-​ordered a few days in advance or at least the day of so you can be guaranteed one of the succulent delicious plates ever to grace Battersea.
Post roast (see how that rhymes) you’d be silly and really a poor decision maker to not join (me most likely) in the music festivities up stairs. A candle lit stair case will show you the way to (stairway to heaven-​ok. bad joke) a big space that is an intimate venue for acoustic and some non acoustic musicians to get up on stage and do their thang.
The production is called Broken Productions. You can check them out here:

Great looking pub, great beer and wine selection and good food, seems like a good mixture of after work and local people. Go