The lane before the river
Church Street sits just off King Street in the middle of Twickenham and runs down to St Mary's, the parish church, which is how it got its name. It is narrow, slightly crooked and lined with low old buildings, most of them with a small shopfront at street level, and for most of the day and evening it is closed to traffic. When the weather allows, tables come out onto the paving and the whole lane turns into one long, slightly cramped dining room.
It is where Twickenham goes out to dinner when it cannot be bothered with Richmond. Nobody is there to be seen, the rooms are small and the prices are the prices of a neighbourhood rather than a destination. For an evening that wants a proper table without any of the theatre of a big restaurant, it is the best few hundred yards in TW1.
What is actually on the lane
Two pubs anchor it. The Fox is a Grade II listed building of the eighteenth century and one of the oldest pubs in the town, low ceilinged and dark wooded, with a kitchen that has become more ambitious than the bar suggests. The Eel Pie, named after the island a few hundred yards downstream, is the rugby pub: memorabilia on every wall, live music on some nights, and completely impossible on a match day.
Between them sit the small restaurants that give the lane its reputation. The mix has for years included Italian and Indian kitchens, sushi, a deli and a wine bar, with Osteria Pulcinella, a family Italian that has been on the street since the 1990s, as the longest serving of them. Small places on a small street change hands more often than anybody would like, so make sure the one you want still has its doors open before planning a night on it. Iris will happily confirm a name if you are unsure.
What unites them is scale. Most of the rooms hold a couple of dozen people, tables sit close together and conversation carries. That makes the lane lovely for two and awkward for eight. It is also why a booking counts for more on this lane than anywhere else in the borough: a room with ten tables is full by eight o'clock on any fine evening.
Which table to ask for
Nobody should pretend to know the seating plan of every room on the lane, and the rooms change. What holds true across nearly all of them is this. The window tables look out onto the street and have the best of the evening passing by, which is lovely in summer and slightly exposed in winter. The tables at the back are quieter and warmer and better for a long conversation. The table nearest the door is the one everybody squeezes past, so avoid it in any season.
When you book, ask for a quiet table for two rather than trying to name a particular one. Say it is a long dinner and that you are in no hurry, and most of these kitchens will seat you somewhere they will not need to turn by nine. Where a place has an upstairs room, ask whether it is open; it almost always has the calmer tables in the building.
In warm weather the outside tables are the whole point of coming. They are also first come, first served in some places, so an early start, around seven, gives you the lane in its best light and a table on the paving before the rush.
Rugby days and ordinary days
The stadium is a walk of a quarter of an hour or so north of the town centre, and on international Saturdays Church Street belongs to the crowd from late morning until very late at night. Both pubs overflow, the restaurants are booked weeks ahead by supporters, and a quiet dinner is simply not on offer. The same is true, to a slightly lesser degree, on big club fixtures and concert nights.
The lane is at its best on an ordinary weeknight, Tuesday to Thursday, when the regulars are in, the tables are half full and nobody is wearing a replica shirt. Before settling on a date, read the guide to the TW rugby calendar, which sets out the weekends to avoid and the evening after a home match that is quietly the best of the lot.
Two minutes down to the water
At the bottom of the lane stands St Mary's, a medieval tower with a nave that was rebuilt in the early eighteenth century after the old one collapsed. Alexander Pope, who lived by the river at Cross Deep, is buried inside. Beside the church, narrow lanes drop to the Embankment in a couple of minutes, and the whole mood of the evening changes: the lane is warm and enclosed, the river is open, dark and moving.
On the Embankment the footbridge crosses to Eel Pie Island, which is private, so look rather than wander. A little further along there are riverside pubs for the drink after dinner. Twickenham's river is tidal, and on the biggest tides the water comes right over the road on this stretch, which is worth knowing if you are in good shoes and planning to sit outside.
Who to book, and how the evening runs
Lea learned the way down to the river before she learned the bus routes, and her favourite evening in TW1 ends on Church Street; she is petite, sharp and on the auburn page, and she prefers weekdays and no international match days, which suits the lane exactly. Rosa is the choice for anybody who cares about food: she refuses to be hurried through a meal and times riverside tables against the tide as a matter of habit. Tiffany lives at the Strawberry Hill end of town and likes to walk back along the river to dinner, noticing every detail of every room on the way.
The booking that fits is dinner on the high street. For £500 you have two hours, enough for a drink on the lane and a proper dinner. At £900 the evening stretches to four, with a walk by the water first, a long table and a last drink by the river. The table is yours to book and the bill yours to settle, and her fee passes to her directly in the first minutes of the evening, before anybody sits down.
Guests coming from Whitton or Isleworth usually arrive by train, since Twickenham station is under ten minutes' walk from the lane. Meet at the top of Church Street rather than at the station itself and the evening starts where it is meant to.
Filed under: most of the names in this note also sit on the petite shortlist in the panel.