MEL DIN BLOG : BADEN POWELL HOTEL

61-61 Victoria Pde Collingwood
9486 0811

What defines a good pub? *Pause for an all night pub argument*

For us it's pretty simple, friendly, local, good variety of drinks at affordable prices, good atmosphere, not pretentious and most of all, well executed traditional pub dishes.

My favourite pub is a cyclical thing, if you can call Mountain Goat Brewery a pub, that probably held the mantle for a while, The Grand in Richmond is great as is The Grace Darling and The Builders Arms in Collingwood.

But my new favourite pub is The Baden Powell Hotel in Collingwood. I've driven past this place about 5000 times but never stopped by. We met some friends here a couple of weeks ago and were very impressed, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, we went back again last night.

Warm, inviting and best of all, not packed

Great place to spend summer

We've tried the pub favourites on the menu, a small but very well executed selection. The rest of the menu focuses on pizza, so we decided to give that a go. Good pub pizza is a rarity, it's usually passable but for good pizza we all have our favourite specialist pizzerias. Having tried a good chunk of the Baden Powell's menu last night, I would go so far to say that it's on par with most good pizza specialists.

The base is similar to say, pizza meine liebe or pizza religion in that it's light and comes from a gas fired oven. Toppings are quality and generous. Prices are also very reasonable, ranging from $16-20.