The Peasant is a bit of an oasis in the wastelands of St John st. A light and airy pub, the decor has a kind of modern yet retro feel, which doesn’t seem to clash in any way.

Despite being smack in between several stations (Angel, Farringdon and Old St) but near none of them, The Peasant certainly isn’t a hidden gem, as the place was packed when we arrived for 2pm.

The Sunday brunch menu was in effect and quite an interesting menu it was too. As well as brunch classics like smoked salmon with scrambled egg and blueberry pancakes with bacon & maple syrup, the menu also had dishes such as black bean and sweetcorn fritters and a broad bean and puy lentil soup. For me it was a toss up between the smoked haddock, the kippers or the corned beef, fried egg and black pudding bagel. The bagel won out in the end, but before we could order mains, we were awaiting the remaining 5 of our group of 14.

To prevent us eating our hands, a few light bites of Aubergine salad & pitta, steamed edamame, hummus & pitta and some spicy deep fried whitebait were ordered. The hummus and aubergine salad with their pittas were fine (although we had to order more pitta to be able to mop up all the dips), the steamed edamame were well prepared and the whitebait was pretty good.

The remaining contingent of 2 & 3 finally arrived, 45 mins and an hour late, respectively. To prevent cannibalism occurring, the rest of us had ordered our mains already, although too late to catch the last of the Sunday roasts, which had run out.

My corned beef bagel was good, although it needed a touch of HP sauce to pick it up a bit. The corned beef was not what I expected, but in a good way. It was more salt beef and was shredded, compared to the corned beef in those tins I used to eat when I was younger (that always seemed to have a touch of the dog food smell about them). Those that ordered the steak sandwich were a little disappointed, as the portions were not impressive, although there were no complaints on the taste side. The steamed haddock and chorizo & poached egg bruschetta also seemed to go down well but the portions were again on the small side.

With space for dessert, I ordered the chantilly profiteroles with hot chocolate sauce, which were very good.

Overall, I did like the Peasant and I would visit again. The service was generally excellent, apart from a couple of blips, which with a large party and at that time of service were easily forgivable. The food was good, although not quite at the levels of The Gun, but it was brunch and they have an upstairs which is more of a restaurant, which would be worth checking out. With the rather large quantities of alcohol being consumed, the bill of £22 a head was not bad at all. A very enjoyable place to spend a Sunday afternoon.