Drapers Arms N1

London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars updates
North London: Canonbury and Barnsbury

Drapers Arms, London N1. Pic: Drapers Arms

Gastropub (Independent)
44 Barnsbury Street N1 1ER
T (020) 7619 0348 W thedrapersarms.com tw DrapersArms
Open 1200-2300 (2230 Sun). Children welcome.
Cask beers 3 (changing often local guests), Other beers 3 keg, 4 bottles, Also 65 wines, a few malts.
Food Gastro menu (reservations recommended), Outdoor Beer garden, Wifi. Disabled toilet.
Aug beer & cider festival, seasonal events, board games, functions.

With an elegant powder blue façade overlooking one of Barnsbury’s more select streets, this fine old pub was restyled and reopened in 2009 by Nick Gibson and Ben Maschler (Fay Maschler’s son) as an Islington gastropub par excellence. A clean and stylish interior — tasteful shades of green, floorboards, black and white floor tiles in a pavilion-style dining room, and shelves of Penguin paperbacks — complements a well regarded British menu. This changes daily but typical offerings might include puy lentil and vegetable roast, lemon sole and brown shrimp butter, pot roast rabbit, rare breed pork chops and various sharing deals involving large chunks of animal, though with main course prices between £10-15 this isn’t bargain pub grub.

Very much worth knowing about is the small but well chosen and well served beer selection — many gastropubs let themselves down here with dull choices but the Drapers regularly offers Harvey’s Sussex Best and two others that might well come from locally connected producers like Sambrook’s, Truman or Windsor & Eton, including dark beers particularly in winter. Camden Town Hells joins Staropramen and a changing craft choice, perhaps Brooklyn, on the keg taps, while BrewDog and Erdinger are in bottles. Non-dining drinkers are welcome and the place is friendlier than you might expect.

National Rail/Overground/Underground Highbury and Islington Bus Islington Town Hall (numerous Angel, Highbury) Cycling LCN+ 7, Camden, Haggerston, link to 8 Walking Link to Jubilee Greenway