Please note, Smokehouse Chiswick has now closed. A pub called The Queen’s Head Pub & Kitchen has opened up on the same site. Time Out Food editors, NOVEMBER 2019.
Like the original Smokehouse in Islington, which combined its pub and restaurant sides so masterfully that you couldn’t easily define it, Smokehouse Mark Two – a mere growler’s throw from the A4 but definitely in keeping with its affluent Chiswick surroundings – also blurs the line between gastro- and -pub. But an additional ingredient may tip the balance.
The added extra is a huge whisky list – 92 counts when we visited, with 130 the target. Most is Scotch, but Asia, the US, and even more exotic whisky-producing regions such as England and Wales are represented too. While prices aren’t cheap, they’re much lower than at other temples of whisky worship, like the bar at Mayfair’s Athenaeum Hotel.
Craft beers also feature prominently: the concise list has unusual brews such as the honey-scented Weird Beard Hive Mind red ale. Bar snacks include deep-fried oysters with beef dripping toast and smoked bone marrow; proper three-course meals will set you back around £30.
The dark wood interiors and wall-mounted antlers give Smokehouse’s three distinct areas – dining room, bar and ‘whisky room’ – a country-house feel. On a late-afternoon weekend visit, the bar was filled with a happy, affluent, generation-spanning crowd.