The Chalk Freehouse.

The Chalk Freehouse

Tom Kerridge closed his own Chelsea pub after eighteen months, kept it dark for about two weeks, and reopened it in June 2025 with a white facade, a new name, and the man who ran the stove at the first two-Michelin-star pub in the world (Hot Dinners).

Why go

The site traded as The Butcher's Tap and Grill, a copy of a Marlow pub of the same name, and it never took in Chelsea. Hot Dinners put the problem plainly: the first attempt didn't really break through in the way that you'd expect from a top chef like Kerridge, particularly when one of his other pubs is the only one in the country with two Michelin stars (Hot Dinners).

What changed was the kitchen, not the building. Tom De Keyser came down from Marlow with staff, having headed The Hand & Flowers and The Coach, and he has been cooking alongside Kerridge for twelve years (The Chalk Freehouse). The menu he brought is a three-course pub carte rather than small plates, built on the Kerridge repertoire: the chicken and duck liver parfait churned to order with poultry jelly and apricot chutney is a Marlow dish, served here in Chelsea.

The room is spread over two floors with an open kitchen and a private dining room in the basement. The best seats are upstairs in the raised part by the window; the basement holds a bigger table better. The name comes from Caelichyth, the Anglo-Saxon for chalk wharf, which is what this stretch of the Thames was used for.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the parfait, and ask for extra brioche. The pork chop schnitzel with the fried duck egg, which is the dish two separate reviews picked out. The 33-day aged bavette if the steak blackboard has it. The Chelsea spud with green garlic butter. And the Chelsea bun for pudding, with cold vanilla custard and boozy fruits, which is the local dish cooked a few streets from where it was invented (Good Food Guide).
• Avoid: the creamed spinach. Arriving in July expecting July food, because the mains run to brisket, lamb shoulder and confit duck through the summer. And do not come for the interior, which nobody has yet defended in print.

What locals & experts say

• William Sitwell, The Telegraph, 13 August 2025, one star, the dissent and the best-written line on the place: Lunch at The Chalk is such a baffling, head-scratching, misfitting, misfiring calamity that I ask myself: is this really from Tom Kerridge? On the room he was blunter still, describing the shiny cream and brown tiles as still looking like a fabricated pub one might find at an airport. On the menu: its British menu is a seasonal aberration. The main courses on my midsummer visit were beef brisket, lamb shoulder, confit duck leg, ricotta dumplings... you get the picture. And on the side that everyone should skip: A side of creamed spinach was simply awful, like some cooked-up frozen offer that tastes like stained, soaked paper, but the buttery mash was fab.2
• The Good Food Guide, rated Good, on the same kitchen: Tom De Keyser (ex-head chef at the Hand & Flowers) is leading the kitchen with a posher offering, and on the dish to order, a generous portion of pork chop schnitzel topped with golden fried duck's egg over a bed of smoked bacon and pickled cabbage was a piece of 'breadcrumb heaven'. Its verdict: While the Butcher's Tap & Grill never quite captured the hearts of Chelsea locals, the Chalk is most definitely a few notches up.3
• B-Side London, 17 August 2025, a London newsletter that published its review as a direct rebuttal to the Telegraph, and still would not defend the room: The main room is serviceable but unremarkable, a pub interior that doesn't stretch the imagination. On the food it is unreserved: it was the 33-day aged bavette of beef that won out: juicy, well-seasoned, resting on buttery mash and herb butter that made every bite linger, with the estate dairy butter among the best I've had in London. Unbylined, so it is carried as a masthead line.4
• Hot Dinners, Gavin Hanly, 5 August 2025, on where the relaunch lands: It's still a proper pub, but the menu is much more compelling with some excellent touches along the way. There may be a few rough corners to smooth out, but this is already clearly the right direction for the pub. The piece discloses that Hot Dinners dined as guests.1
• On the city signature. London invented the gastropub and is where the format gets judged, and this is a pub kitchen run by the group whose Marlow pub reached two Michelin stars. The Good Food Guide files it as Modern British Pub, the bar still serves people who only want a pint, and the argument in print is precisely whether the kitchen is doing the thing properly. That is the London gastropub question, asked about a specific address.

Good to know

• Where: 27 Tryon Street, a few steps off the King's Road and about ten minutes' walk from Sloane Square. The Food Standards Agency register is the authority on the number; the press prints three different ones.
• Timing: lunch Monday to Saturday 12 to 2.30pm and Sunday straight through to 9pm, dinner Monday to Saturday 5.30 to 9.30pm.
• Booking: book online, though the venue states that walk-ins are welcome. The raised front area by the window is the seat to ask for; the basement suits groups.
• Price: starters from GBP 9.50, mains GBP 25 to 31, desserts from GBP 11, wines by the glass from GBP 10. The weekday set lunch is GBP 18.50 for two courses and GBP 25 for three, which is the value on the whole list.
• Diet: the vegetarian offer is thin, a couple of dishes with ricotta dumplings as the main one. No dietary statement is published, so ask.
• Drinks: beers from the Marlow pubs, including The Hand and Flowers Best Bitter, house cocktails at GBP 15, plus Guinness 0% and Lucky Saint for anyone off it.
• Hygiene: Food Standards Agency rating 5, inspected 4 March 2026, Kensington and Chelsea, FHRSID 1691233. Component scores hygiene 5, structural 0, confidence in management 0, where lower is better.6
• Dogs: welcome, as at any pub.
• Who runs it: the Tom Kerridge group, on its second concept at this address inside two years.

Verdict

could-visit — Go for the weekday set lunch and go with the room's limits understood. Tom Kerridge shut his own Chelsea pub after eighteen months, kept it dark for about two weeks, and reopened it in June 2025 under a new name with Tom De Keyser in the kitchen, the man who ran the stove at The Hand and Flowers, the first pub in the world to hold two Michelin stars, and at The Coach. That pedigree does land on the plate in places. The chicken and duck liver parfait is churned to order and comes straight from the Marlow repertoire. The pork chop schnitzel under a fried duck egg, with smoked bacon and pickled cabbage, is the one dish the Good Food Guide and a rebuttal review both picked out, and B-Side London gave the 33-day aged bavette its best line. Set against that, William Sitwell's Telegraph review awarded one star and called lunch a 'baffling, head-scratching, misfitting, misfiring calamity', with a midsummer carte of brisket, lamb shoulder and confit duck that he read as a seasonal aberration. Nobody defends the interior, including the review written to defend the pub. This is an expansion group's second concept at one address inside two years, which carries the burden of proof on edge and value, and the burden is only half met. The set lunch at two or three courses is the honest send, because it buys a two-star pub kitchen's technique at a price the carte does not.