Hampstead Heath, International Restaurant Guide

This “crowd-pleasing destination” – dating from 1585 and “perfect after a walk on Hampstead Heath” – is a place of literary pilgrimage, frequented by Byron and Dickens, while Keats wrote his famous ode after listening to a nightingale sing in its garden. These days you’ll find a menu of “well-cooked and presented pub classics”.

Yes, the boozer from the distantly-remembered song – a music-hall hit for Edwardian chanteuse Florrie Forde. It nowadays pitches itself as a ‘country pub in the city’, thanks to its leafy location, between Golders Hill Park and Hampstead Heath West: so no real change from Florrie’s era, when Cockneys would visit on a day trip. The renovated tavern certainly remains an attractive destination – the menu is not particularly ‘gastro’ but a bit too fancy to be described as ‘pub grub’ (think steak or sea bass rather than burger or fish ’n’ chips).