London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
North London: Camden Town and Primrose Hill
Some of the decorations at the Sir Richard Steele, London NW3
Traditional pub (Faucet Inn)
97 Haverstock Hill NW3 4RL
T (020) 7483 1261 W www.faucetinn.com/sirrichardsteele
Open 1100 (1200 Sun)-2400 (2330 Sun). Children welcome until 1900.
Cask beers 4-6 (Adnams, Wells & Young’s, Westerham, guests) Cask marque, Other beers 1 keg, 1 bottle, occasional real cider.
Food Imaginative pub grub, Outdoor Beer garden, Wifi.
Thu quiz, Sun live music, annual beer festival, board games, functions.
One of London’s great eccentric pubs, and the winner of numerous awards including most recently a fancyapint.com reviewers’ award in 2011, the Steeles, as it’s known locally, is a big corner pub on the lower slopes of Haverstock Hill. On the edge of Belsize Park and just down the road from Hampstead, it’s popular with celebrities but is welcoming to anyone. Cult film director Tim Burton lives nearby and you might think he had a hand in the decor, which is quite spectacular: rich wood panelling, clocks, old advertising signs and other curios, stained glass, large portraits of the pub’s namesake, fireplaces, giant mirrors and toy bats hanging from a ceiling that sports a vast Renaissance-style fresco depicting regular customers.
Until early in 2011, the pub had been under the same ownership for 25 years, and the current look dates from the 1980s. The owners, Paul Davies and Kirk McGrath, had since reopened the Pineapple nearby (p156) and decided to sell the Steeles to finance further smaller pubs on the real ale-focused Pineapple model, prompting much local anxiety. Thankfully the new owners, Faucet Inn, who also own the Dartmouth Arms (p154), have changed little, though they have given the place a good clean and it’s now looking better than ever.
They’ve also brought in manager Paul, a real ale expert, to improve the beer focus, so it’s well worth keeping an eye on. The plan is for up to six cask beers, with one pump permanently dedicated to a changing Westerham beer, another to a changing Wells & Young’s, and guests from those breweries as well as the likes of Adnams, Batemans or Thwaites. Classy lagers are Camden Town Hells on keg and Budvar in the fridge, while occasional beer festivals will expand the range further. A varied home made food menu runs from sharing plates, salads, sandwiches and burgers to toad in the hole and caramelised red onion tatin.
Pub trivia. Irish-born writer, politician, theatre manager and founder of the Tatler and Spectator magazines, Richard Steele (1671-1729) lived nearby, and the locality is known as Steeles Village. Steele once observed: “People spend their lives in the service of their passions instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.”
Overground Kentish Town West Underground Chalk Farm Bus Steeles Village (168 Chalk Farm, Belsize Park) Walking Belsize Walk
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