Vervain, Croydon: ‘The terrific cooking deserves a snazzier setting’ – restaurant review

Thinking big: the dinning room with its huge windows. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer

Vervain, Birch, 126 Addington Road, South Croydon, CR2 8YA (020 3953 3000, birchcommunity.com). Meal for two: starters £8-£14, mains £16-£36, desserts £6-£9, wines from £30

Ghost Town by the Specials is echoing through the empty foyer of Birch, a big chunk of redbrick hotel set in 200 acres of grounds on that southern edge of Croydon known as Selsdon. There are many tunes you could pipe into the deserted public spaces of a hotel on a Sunday night; Ghost Town really shouldn’t be one of them. Terry Hall’s mournful hymn to urban abandonment bounces around the broad entry hall with its delicately painted floral ceiling and its chunks of marquetry art.