The Dove. It’s a funny place, isn’t it. Wooden paneling and an impressive array of beers on tap, as well as a range of eye-wateringly priced fruit beers that are frankly disgusting. I mean, why would anyone think that strawberry beer was a good idea. It’s like snail porridge, or egg and bacon icecream….oh, I see. Slightly less twatish crowd than the Mat and Cutton. Well, just older twats like me probably.
Anyway,I like the Dove. Most of the time. I like it when you manage to get a table on a rainy, cold Saturday afternoon and instead of staying for a half like you’d planned, you find yourself talking about your favourite books surrounded by a lovely hazy fog of booze and friendship. It’s good for dates, with candles and red wine and little tables tucked away in the corner. It’s good for taking french people to, as I discovered on Friday night. They loved the offbeat oldworldpubfusedwiththaiandBritishfood charm and tucked into posh sausage and mash with gusto.
As ever, I do have to have a bit of a moan. I realised just then that I should really bloody love the Dove – it has everything I want in a pub namely decent beer, good food, attractive interior and it’s five minutes away from my house. But I don’t go in that often. And you know why? Because too often the people running the place just don’t seem to like their customers very much. Once I was in there with Laura and Nic and we got told off (and I HATE being told off) for laughing. After half a pint. On Friday, a young foreign trendy was not allowed into the pub, even accompanied by an adult, to tell her friends that she couldn’t get in and would wait for them somewhere else. The bloke, who undoutedly has the right to be as nasty to anyone as he wants because it’s probably his bloody pub, was quite needlessly rude to her.
It’s a shame, because all the other bits and bobs add up to make the Dove another little jewel in LF. A little less aggravation, a little more Jupiler (Belgium’s favourite lager) please.
Tom said,
March 31, 2009 @ 4:10 pm
It’s the best place in the area, but I completely agree; it’s staffed by idiots.
I too was threatened with eviction on a Sat in the early evening after several hours drinking. We were making too much noise apparently…a group of 6 of us must have spent well over a £100 that afternoon and they treated us dirt.
Ell said,
July 7, 2009 @ 3:08 pm
Yep, same experience. haven’t been back, it’s not a nice enough pub that I’ll put up with rude service.
TMM said,
October 12, 2009 @ 1:47 pm
Yeah, me too – twice now I’ve experienced ridiculoulsy rude and agressive behaviour from staff at the Dove. Keep going back though, must be a glutton for punishment. I do enjoy a beer there. Anyway, the other staff (the non-rude and non-agreeive but slightly grumpy types) don’t bother me.