At the private view of Proud Chelsea’s Sex, Drugstores and Rock & Roll: A History of the King’s Road, a bevy of demobed dolly birds and 60s faces now in their sixties are out in their finery. How fashion-fantastic that thoroughfare must have been in its patchouli-drenched Sergeant Pepper heyday. Nowadays, it’s a boulevard of bland, boring as a Boden-ed-up Belgian banker. By the bridge where Chelsea slums it with Fulham, there’s a new kid on the block, Olympia food pub The Jam Tree’s second branch. A big decked beer garden defies the sun not to shine from now until September and I like the main room’s funked-up new Britannia pose. A shortish wine list peddles quaffable stuff at under a score but upgrade to a zesty Picpoul de Pinet (£23.50), good with ‘colonial’ pub food: that’s Malaysian spicy noodle soup (laksi), Jamaican chicken curry (£12.50) and nasi goreng but not haggis unless they want their windows pushed through by outraged Bravehearts. The signature cocktail, (strawberry) Jam Mojito, is well enough executed but doesn’t improve on the classic recipe. On my second reccie, the crowd is a mix of Chelsea bland blondes and Chelseigh and her lairy Plan B lookalike mates from Fulham’s remaining ungentrified terraces. Stylish? In the 90s, this site housed Revolution, or at least that's what my brain cell thinks one of Jam Tree II's on-trend-for-a-nano-second predecessors was called. Sadly, King's Road's cool crown has long since slipped. The new owners should look to Haggerston or Deptford for Jam Tree III.
541 King's Road SW6 2EB 020 3397 3739 www.thejamtree.com
