Do you remember the olden days – when you had to get photos developed and Noel’s House Party was on the telly?

That’s how spending some time in The Red Lion feels.

It’s not old fashioned in the sense that everything is drooping and tired, but like you’ve stepped back in a time machine.

Like pubs of yore, the carpet is busy, the wall paper is busy and the paintwork is that thick gloss stuff like you might find chipping off a school radiator – except here it’s not chipping off and its bold green on the ceiling.

Despite being full of wildly colliding reds and greens, it is easy to imagine the place captured in the sepia of a photograph.

Even the name, The Red Lion, is deeply traditional.

Do you know what, I liked it.

I like that my food was brought to me by a polite man in a tie (presumably the landlord), I liked that the service couldn’t have been friendlier and more genuine and I liked that this boozer serves good old fashioned drinks.

Around half a dozen ales, some unusual, were on tap and my Banks’ Black Diamond (£3.50 a pint) was a properly full and heavy dark ale.

It’s no wonder CAMRA are fans too.

The Red Lion seems to me to be a great place to come and sit and read the paper (or one of the hundreds of books lining its shelves).

While it may be dated, care has been taken to keep it newly-dated, as it were.

Fresh flowers lined the large window out front and it was very clean.

That said, there was an element of no frills to the place.

Menus were laminated sheets of plain A4 paper folded and the their contents were barely more adventurous.
The food ranged from basic sandwiches to omelettes, to sausages and burgers and little else.

In these days of gourmet burgers, it was almost a novelty that my cheeseburger and chips looked like it was from the pre-fancy burger days of the 90s.

The cheese was processed and the burger thin with a bundle of slippery onions on top. I devoured it and enjoyed it in a kind of pre-digital way.

It was astoundingly cheap too at £3.95.

The Red Lion, North Road, Bromley

How it rated:

Decor *** Old but clean

Atmosphere *** Not half bad

Price *** Good value food

Staff **** Friendly and earnest

Food ** No frills

Drink **** Nice selection