Gospel Oak, International Restaurant Guide

“Still a great pub to have as a local” – Giles Coren’s favourite gastropub and one of our annual diners’ poll’s highest rated in north London is well-placed for a stroll on Hampstead Heath and thronged at the weekend. It is also the “kind of gastropub where you can still just have a drink”. Its ratings staged something of a comeback this year: “the cooking remains good”: in particular “dinner is stunning and good value”. (If you’re an out-of-towner, consider staying in one of their seven guest rooms).

“A great little bistro” in Gospel Oak, behind the Royal Free, which is “always packed to the rafters with people from the surrounding area who have been coming for years”. The straightforward food is of diverse inspirations – “good value and plentiful” – and “staff are attentive and friendly”. Now in its third decade, it makes no effort to modernise – but so what? It’s a place where “you could eat every day”.