“I was rather hoping they’d have revamped the revamp by now!” – this elegant, well-known Islington gastropub (with garden) is still on many accounts a “lovely local”, yet it too often falls short nowadays; despite the “steep” prices, the service can be “appalling”, and the food is regularly “wide of the mark”.
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It’s very difficult not to like this handsome pub, which is both spiritually and physically well removed from the tawdry delights of Islington’s Upper Street. It’s already had one spell of su...
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Press Reviews (3)
Giles Coren (27th July 2009)
8/10
The critic compares this recently re-opened Barnsbury gastropub with St John Bread & Wine, where the chef came from, and finds it has all the “Clerkenwell class without having to risk a trip to Clerkenwell.” The menu is “a thrilling review of St John greatest hits”, but with the “added bonus” of being a “spacious Victorian pub” with a “lovely garden”. “[I]t’s quite a bit cheaper than St John, too.”
Guy Dimond (21st May 2009)
3/6 stars
“[O]ne of the most handsome gastropubs in Islington”, this former boozer is “still a proper pub”, TO’s head critic assures us. “The daily-changing menu is firmly contemporary British, neatly matching the no-nonsense aesthetics of the pub’s refit”, he says, but some dishes “didn’t quite live up to expectations”. Service, however, is “impeccable”.
David Sexton (14th May 2009)
3/5 stars
This Barnsbury pub has recently been reopened under new ownership (including Ms Maschler’s son Ben) and with Karl Goward (ex-St John) in the kitchen. The critic enjoys the “St-John-goes-to-the-pub” cuisine (although he admits to feeling “a bit of an amateur Hannibal Lecter” for eating seven devilled duck’s hearts). His only gripe is that the “extreme starkness” of some dishes appears “mannered”. “[O]n this form, the Drapers...looks like it’s going straight back to being the joy of the neighbourhood that it was in its heyday”.
Giles Coren (27th July 2009)
Guy Dimond (21st May 2009)
David Sexton (14th May 2009)
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