Westminster Beer Hall Lunch and Oompah: Munich Cricket Club

Munich Cricket Club Victoria opens at 12pm every day at 1 Abbey Orchard St, London SW1P 2LU, a short walk from St James's Park station, and a weekday Express Lunch here costs £9.95. Of the three London branches it is the biggest beer hall by headcount, licensed for 399 guests, and it is one of only two where the house oompah band plays. If you typed beer hall near me somewhere between Parliament Square and Victoria Street, this is the Bavarian room closest to the Abbey.

Abbey Orchard Street is a quiet side road of civil-service buildings, so the first surprise is the noise once the door opens. The group calls this site its Bavarian Bierkeller and Party Central for Westminster, and the layout backs that up: long communal tables on the main floor, a mezzanine that holds 75, and a smaller room called the Circus that seats 50. Book the Mezzanine and Circus together and you have space for 125 without spilling into the public bar.

The club pitches this branch at after-work drinks, weekend celebrations and group bookings, and its own page lists the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the QEII Conference Centre as neighbours. In practice that means the lunch tables are shared by people on a working break, while the evening benches go to office leaving parties and birthday groups with pre-booked platters. One unspoken rule holds all day: a free end of a long bench is shared, so ask and sit.

The DDFK Oompah Band is the reason to choose Victoria over Canary Wharf. The club's own events page lists the band as playing weekly at Victoria and Tower Hill only, with live brass, German schlager and sing-along covers such as Sweet Caroline. It is not a seated concert. Expect people standing on benches by the second set, steins raised over the tables, and a room that gets loud enough that conversation stops for a few songs at a time.

That suits a birthday or a stag group far better than a quiet catch-up. If you want to talk, come for the 12pm to 3pm lunch window instead, when the room is calm and the light comes through the front windows. Band nights tend to be the ones that sell out first, so a table booked on the website a few days ahead is worth more than turning up at 8pm and hoping a bench end is free.

Victoria runs the same weekly calendar as its sister branches, and it rewards planning. Munich Mondays bring 2 for 1 on every schnitzel dish. Sausage Tuesday is a sausage and a pint for £14.95, available all day. On Dine and Stein Wednesday, any main comes with a free stein of Haus Bier or a large glass of wine, and at Victoria that offer runs all day rather than only from 8pm. Happy hour is 4pm to 8pm daily, and all day on Fridays.

Students get their own deal: £5 for a pint, a glass of bubbly or a house spirit and mixer, plus 20% off the rest of the menu with a valid student ID. The honest judgement is that Thursday and Saturday at full price are the least good value here. You pay the same as a Monday for a busier room, so if the deals matter to you, pick the night by the offer rather than by habit.

Lunch is where Victoria beats most central London pubs on price. The Express Lunch at £9.95 lets you pick bratwurst, currywurst, a Caesar salad, a chicken schnitzel burger or a Leberkässemmel, with a Fritz soft drink included. The Kaiser Lunch at £14.95 is a chicken or vegan schnitzel, apple strudel with lingonberry jam and a shot of pear, raspberry, apricot or hazelnut schnapps. Both run on weekdays from 12pm to 3pm.

At dinner, groups should look at the Würschtl Platte, £33 for two or £79 for five, which brings a spread of Bavarian sausages with sauerkraut, Bavarian potato salad, fries, curry sauce and pretzels. On your own, the beef goulash with potatoes, sour cream and a Kaiser roll is £17 and is the most filling single plate for the price. The Wurstschnecke, a spiral sausage on mash with onion gravy, is the order that photographs best on a long table. Skip the loaded fries; they are the least Bavarian thing on the card.

To drink, the house Clubhaus lager is the cheapest pour at £6.95 a pint, and the Hacker-Pschorr Dunkel is £7.75 a pint or £15.50 for a stein if you want something darker and maltier with the sausages. The beer taster board at £14.95 is a good way for a first-timer to work out which Munich style they like before committing to a full litre. An optional 12.5% service charge is added to every bill.

Packages cover birthdays, corporate events and festive parties, and the Circus room is the most practical choice for a group of up to 50 that wants its own space while still hearing the band through the door.

If you arrive on a band night without a booking and every bench is taken, do not stand in the doorway for long. A wait of more than 20 minutes on a busy Thursday rarely clears, because groups stay for the whole set. If brass is the whole point, Tower Hill is the other branch with the band, a direct ride on the District line from St James's Park; otherwise book Victoria for another night and come back for the lunch deal.

Westminster Abbey is a few minutes north along Victoria Street, which makes this an easy stop after a morning tour. Before you sit down, walk through Christchurch Gardens on Victoria Street, a small green with a scroll-shaped memorial to the suffragettes, then follow Broadway past the old London Transport headquarters, Charles Holden's Portland stone tower that rises above St James's Park station.

After a long lunch, St James's Park is the better digestif than a second stein. Enter from Birdcage Walk, cross the blue bridge over the lake for the view toward Buckingham Palace and back toward Horse Guards, and look for the pelicans near Duck Island. If it rains, Westminster Cathedral's striped red-brick nave is a ten-minute walk west, and its free entry makes it the easiest dry stop before you head home from Victoria.

Address: Munich Cricket Club Victoria, 1 Abbey Orchard St, London SW1P 2LU. Hours: Monday to Wednesday 12pm to 11pm, Thursday to Saturday 12pm to 12am, Sunday 12pm to 10pm. The weekday lunch deals run from 12pm to 3pm.

Nearest stations: St James's Park on the District and Circle lines is closest, with Victoria and Westminster both within a ten to fifteen minute walk. The whole venue can be hired for up to 399 people. Vegan schnitzel and vegan sausages are on the regular menu, so mixed groups do not need to pre-order special dishes.