The Ram Inn | Storied Wandsworth Boozer with a Hyped BBQ Residency
Not to be confused with a mountain goat, The Ram is a historic pub in Wandsworth.
Historic, as in the pub is said to have been sitting in the same place on Wandsworth High Street since 1533, and in the 500-or-so year lead up to 2023, has undergone various remodels, rebuilds and names (many know it as The Brewery Tap), before it reopened in its latest form in October 2019, and reverted back to its original name of yore, The Ram Inn.
We’ll call it The Ram for now, and while its interior might not be revolutionising contemporary interior design, it’s an old, characterful kind of pub with plenty of homely scruff and quirks: a long central bar, vintage leather couches, a gold-painted ceiling, darts and photos on the walls that tell of the pub’s storied past. It’s also a party kind of pub, which the disco balls hanging from above may allude to (they aren’t only there for decoration), and where DJs come in to play on weekend nights until 2am-ish. Upstairs, there’s ping pong tables if you fancied a game of that… or beer pong.
Since Spring, The Ram has installed a cheat code in its kitchen via From The Ashes BBQ, a hyped pop-up from chef duo Curtis Been & Martin Anderson. Having done the rounds on London’s pop-up restaurant and food festival scene, and hot off the back of a very successful residency at Gipsy Hill brewery, the pair have a six-month stay pencilled here (though hopefully for a lot longer if The Ram has anything to say about it) and they cook up all sorts of meaty goodness out the back from those tanker-like machines they call smokers.
Like the Whole Beast at Fat Walrus dynamic over in New Cross, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship where From The Ashes BBQ gets a space to experiment and road test dishes, plus guinea pigs customers to gage opinions on whether everything tastes up to standard, and The Ram gets the humble brag of serving some of the best pub food south of the river. Win-win. As for what FTA are cooking, you could crow on about the entire menu for an age, but some of the highlights (from starters to desserts) were…
…the beer-battered pickle (served with mustard); the Del Potro (a sweet-savoury sandwich-like invention where doughnut halves form the bread and smoked braised short-rib, chipotle sauce, crispy onions and a layer of smoked cheese form the contents); Guinness & treacle glazed short rib; and an ice cream sandwich where a hunk of dulce de leche ice cream and dark chocolate are plopped between doughnut halves.
On Sundays, sure enough, the attention is all on roasts – smoked porchetta, chicken or rump, supplemented by all the goods (gravy, roasties etc) and a well-sized Yorkshire pud.
And to quench your thirst, you’ve got cocktails from The Ashes (also getting the smoky treatment: there’s a smoked peach mezcalita and a burnt honey old fashioned) and a list of craft beer, including another The Ram x Ashes collab in the juicy pale IPA, that’s made in-house. The Ram functions as an on-site brewery, and before it closed in 2006 as a Youngs Pub, it claimed to be the ‘oldest British brewery in continuous operation’. And if you don’t like beer or history?
Don’t worry, there’s wine as well…
NOTE: The Ram Inn is open from Thurs-Sun. You can peruse the full From The Ashes menu and make a booking on their website, right here.
The Ram | 68 Wandsworth High St, London SW18 4LB
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