This is the kind of multi-room Tooting pub that sneaks up on you — what looks like a straightforward local from the outside hides a basement cinema, a library room, an "alchemy room" for cocktails, and a secret beer garden out back. Recently refurbished, it's become a proper neighbourhood hub with craft beer, award-winning Sunday roasts, pub quizzes, live music, and pop-up DJ sets. Locals are fighting hard to keep it alive, which tells you everything about how much this place matters to the community.
A cosy Tooting pub hiding a basement cinema, a secret beer garden, and award-winning Sunday roasts behind an unassuming London Road façade.
Book ahead for Sunday roasts — they're the most popular thing here and tables fill up fast, especially in the beer garden when the weather's good.
A multi-room Tooting local with a basement cinema and a secret garden
The Gorringe Park is one of those pubs that rewards a second look. From London Road it reads as a fairly standard south London local, but step inside and you'll find a warren of rooms each with its own personality — a library room with book-lined walls, an "alchemy room" where the cocktails get mixed, and, best of all, a basement cinema that screens films downstairs. The recently refurbished interior keeps things cosy rather than polished, which suits the Tooting crowd just fine.
The food is solid pub fare done with genuine care — the Sunday roasts are the headline act and have picked up local awards, but the everyday menu of pub classics holds its own too. The bar stocks a decent range of craft beers alongside premium wines and a cocktail list that's more ambitious than you'd expect from a neighbourhood boozer. Out back, the "secret" beer garden is a genuine summer highlight — tucked away and surprisingly roomy.
What really sets this place apart is the atmosphere. Pub quizzes, live music nights, and pop-up DJ sets give it a buzz that most locals in this corner of Merton can't match. The 4.2-star Google rating across nearly 600 reviews feels fair — it's not a gastropub pretending to be fine dining, and it doesn't try to be. It's a proper community pub, and the fact that residents have mounted a campaign to protect it from redevelopment tells you how much it matters to people around here. Go for a Sunday roast, stay for the garden.