The museum Café is, by nature, a functional and overpriced pitstop that plays second fiddle to all the muso paint splodges around it. And while Dulwich Picture Gallery certainly looks the part – cool parquet, bare concrete, streaming light from ceiling-height windows and skylights – the edible offering does nothing to change that fact.
It was all cripplingly average. A ham roll saw a decent, bran-flecked and chewy wholemeal bun barely stuffed with forgettable pig (one slice) and some weary salad. From the kitchen menu proper, a plate of gravlax was prettily herb-crusted but tasted of zip; while a beef stew, heavy with carrot and potato, was blandly over-salted. Both were sub-Ikea-canteen at double the prices. But hey, they do Meantime IPA by the bottle and the coffee’s objectively alright, so it wasn’t a complete bust.
You’d be mad to traipse all the way to Dulwich Village – a rarefied corner of southeast London only barely served by public transport – purely to eat here. And really, with Lordship Lane a ten-minute power-stroll away, you’d be mad even with the Henry Moores and Dutch landscapes. But for a caffeinated pick-me-up and a slice of something sugary, it’s fine. No more.