The Tankard Kennington

You're walking past the Victorian red-brick frontage on Kennington Road and already you can feel it's the sort of place where people actually want to be. Once you're inside, it's got that lived-in warmth—wooden beams, brass fixtures, the kind of bar that's seen decades of conversations. The crowd's mixed: suits from the nearby offices, locals who've been coming for years, a few tourists who've stumbled in by accident and stayed for three rounds. The beer selection's solid, the staff know what they're doing, and the food won't pretend to be something it's not—proper pub fare that hits the spot.