Lord Clyde, Highbury  

When we discovered that Irish boozer Kendrick's Bar had remodelled itself as a "food-led pub", a collective groan went around Fancyapint Towers. As the penultimate vestige of old Islington's public house legacy bit the dust, did we really need another pub turned restaurant? As it happens, repeated visits have indicated you shouldn't always believe the hype; there's no cutlery pre-emptively laid out on tables as we half-expected and overall, this is simply a good pub which happens to sell pretty fantastic food. Service is consistently great: friendly, chatty and polite, while a couple of well-kept real ales whetted our whistles nicely. The music is always spot on, going from Pink Floyd to The Roots via Primal Scream. It's a big pub, still complete with it's lovely original Charringtons wood panelling and parquet flooring, but they need to bring some warmth and light to the rather dull back room. One of the men's toilets needs work, too. There's a few issues to iron out and they need more customers, but we feel it could become great here and award a correspondingly enthusiastic four pint rating.

reviewed:
21/03/2008

pub features:(click on an icon to see an explanation)

two real ales

a few tables outside

board games

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