Canton Arms

After dark the front bar cooks one thing, toasties pressed in a Breville, and you can have yours filled with foie gras or haggis (The Infatuation).

Why go

Trish Hilferty and Charlie Bousfield opened this in 2010, having cooked together at The Anchor & Hope in Waterloo, which the pub still calls the group mothership (venue). It went onto the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list almost immediately and has not left, climbing into the top 25 in 2023 and sitting at number 11 as the list reads now (Top 50 Gastropubs). Harden's named it Best London Pub in 2021.

The kitchen rewrites its menu every day. That is the pub's own claim, the Top 50 entry records a blackboard of changing specials, and the critic who ate there confirmed it independently. Behind the rotation is the slower work: they cure their own charcuterie, make their own sausages and bake bread in house daily. Meat is named to the farm, Tamworth and Middlewhite pork from Swaledale Foods in Yorkshire and Salt Marsh lamb from an Essex rare-breed farm for the seven-hour shoulder, with line-caught sea bass from Mersea Island. Fruit and vegetables come from Primeur and Giaci.

The drink follows the same habit. The wine list is organic and low-intervention and changes with the seasons alongside the menu. The cellar is described in the terms a cask pub uses when it means it, casks laid and vented rather than just poured. And the shelves round the dining room carry things they made themselves: damson and sloe gin, cherry and plum brandy, a bay leaf and fennel digestivo, and the Vin d'Orange they make through the winter when blood oranges and bitter Sevilles are in.

Order this / avoid

• Order: a foie gras toastie at the bar, which is what the front room does after dark. In the dining room, the seven-hour Salt Marsh lamb shoulder, and the duck heart skewer with chermoula when the board has it, which the critic said should be part of any order. Otherwise read the board, because it is different today. A glass of the house Vin d'Orange in season.
• Avoid: trying to eat a full dinner at the bar, because the front room will sell you a toastie and that is the offer. The fish when it arrives in a pool of garlic butter, unless the garlic is the point. And do not bring ten people without arranging the feasting menu first.

What locals & experts say

• Jake Missing, Editorial Lead London at The Infatuation, August 2022, scored 8.0: "The menu is a touch European and a touch British, and the food is neither brilliant nor bad, but perfect for the space. Homely portions of Montbéliard sausage and beans, a fish whose final splash is in a pool of butter, a plate of ripe peaches and stracciatella. It's satisfying stuff that has some faults." He names them: "Things like overdone beef or a garlic clove too far on more than one dish. But it's impossible to dislike." ref
• The same review on what to actually order: the duck heart skewer, where "the cinnamon, cumin, and paprika in this dry chermoula rub is delicious. And it's perfect with pink duck hearts. This, or anything similar, should definitely be part of your order." And on the room: "This is a local pub for local people. Only it's not in Royston Vasey, it's in Stockwell, and you'll want to pay it a visit." ref
• Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs, ranking it 11: "This pub has made waves on the Top 50 list jumping up to the top 25 in 2023." Its dish list runs to "oxtails cooked in Guinness, with pumpkin and rosemary", "a curried lamb pie with buttered greens", and "Essex coast cod, bubble and squeak". ref
• Harden's, 2021: Best London Pub, as recorded by the venue.

Good to know

• Where: 177 South Lambeth Road, Stockwell SW8 1XP. Stockwell tube, on the main road.
• Two rooms, two offers: the front bar and the dining room behind it. At dinner the bar serves toasties only.
• Timing: the venue publishes no opening hours anywhere, which is the one gap in this entry. Lunch and dinner both run, and Sunday roast is part of the week.
• Booking: recommended for the dining room. Feasting menus for parties over ten need arranging by email in advance, and the pub will build a bespoke menu for an event.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Lambeth, inspected 25 February 2025, FHRSID 483472. Lambeth does not publish component scores on this record, which is a quirk of the entry rather than a finding. ref
• In the room: dogs welcome, seats outside, and locals at the bar who will look up when you come in.
• Sites: a small independent group of four. The Anchor & Hope in Waterloo, which is curated here, plus The Clarence Tavern in Stoke Newington and The Magdalen Arms in Oxford. Each has its own working partners and its own kitchen, so a review of one says nothing about the others.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row, so the master CSV's line about the Anchor & Hope lineage and the foie gras toastie is enrichment text rather than his, and nothing here is attributed to him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Worth the detour to Stockwell, and worth knowing which door to use. Trish Hilferty and Charlie Bousfield opened this in 2010 after cooking together at The Anchor & Hope, and the kitchen has stayed on the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list ever since, sitting at number 11 as the list reads now after climbing into the top 25 in 2023. Harden's named it Best London Pub in 2021. The craft argument is a rotation argument and it holds on three independent sources: the menu is rewritten every day, the wine list changes with the seasons, and the specials go on a blackboard. Behind that is work most pubs do not do. They cure their own charcuterie, make their own sausages, bake bread in house daily, and infuse their own damson gin, bay leaf and fennel digestivo and a Vin d'Orange made through the blood orange season. Meat comes from named farms: Tamworth and Middlewhite pork from Swaledale, Salt Marsh lamb from an Essex rare-breed farm for the seven-hour shoulder. The reason it stops short of the top rung is the person who actually ate there. The Infatuation's Jake Missing scored it 8.0 and wrote that the food is 'neither brilliant nor bad, but perfect for the space', with overdone beef and a garlic clove too far on more than one dish. Use the front bar for a pint and a foie gras toastie, and the dining room when you have time.