The Camden Eye, Camden Town, NW1

Official site of The Camden Eye - www.camdeneye.pub

Official site of The Camden Eye - www.camdeneye.pub

A V-shaped corner pub with an optical theme: various opticians' test equipment is on display. The little bar counter seems fairly original but seating is now mainly high tables and metal stools. An upstairs room was signed but not visited. On handpump were Laine Bestest and Marston's 61 Deep, along with a smattering of craft taps. The condition of that sampled was not wonderful.

Directly opposite Camden tube station and the Camden Underworld, this pub sits in the crook of a junction and looks like it's going to be a huge pub like the World's End over the road, but in reality it's a very compact triangular shaped single room set-up. The room is bare boarded and has high table and stool seating filling up the majority of the space opposite the servery, which runs along the back wall. The bar has a dark wood counter, which runs in an L-shape, having turned 90 degrees at its left hand end to run into a small side area that has enough room for a single table under some plain mirrors. The bar back is quite attractive and is broken up by the presence of a zebra-striped dumb waiter. The walls have been painted in fairly dark shades and decorated with a repeating series of quite pleasing circular portraits. A large mural showing the junction outside with the pub as the focal point adorns one wall and there were a lot of fairy lights, glitter balls and other such kitsch decorations around the room. A TV was showing muted coverage of a basketball match - possibly a pub first for me - whilst some fairly loud music played away, as is the norm in most Camden boozers. Elsewhere I spotted a stag's head mounted on one wall and some casks labelled 'Camden Eye Ale' on top of the bar back. Stairs lead you down to the toilets and the staircase has been lined with black and white portraits and an old Halfway House pub sign, which refers to the pub's original name. On the bar, six handpulls, but only three in action offering a choice of Robinson's Trooper, house beer Camden Eye Ale (apparently brewed by the Camden Brewery) and a rather enigmatic clip that just said 'Waters Pale Ale'. Turned clips for Fullers London Pride, St Austell Tribute and Wadworth Horizon at least demonstrated that there was no great loss in only having half the pumps in action. I decided to play it safe and went for the Trooper, which was in pretty good nick and I should mention the staff who were extremely friendly and helpful, including one chap who vanished for a good five minute in an attempt to get me a packet of crisps (I got the feeling he nipped to a nearby shop). I generally find Camden is full of pubs with a bit of promise but no inclination to strive for excellence and this pub falls neatly into that category. The beer was very promising given previous reviews and there was the usual nice buzz you expect from pubs in this part of town. I'd happily return but at the same time, I could just as happily interchange this pub for any of around a dozen others in the vicinity and not really notice the difference.

Once the Halfway House and one of the oldest pubs in the borough going back a good few hundred years, though the current building was probably rebuilt in the 1920s or '30s. Previously I'd thought that this was a slightly upmarket food-led pub but it's neither of these things, with a very small bar (at least at ground floor level) with hopeless live music (a Lithuanian guitarist and singer who could neither play guitar nor sing). The place is bare boarded and sport played on the TV with the sound down, ambient sound provided by loud music prior to Pavel's arrival. There's a slightly touristy crowd, which is no surprise given the pub's close proximity to the tube. Ales: Caledonian Deuchars IPA, generic Camden Eye, St. Austell's Tribute, Fuller's London Pride, Watney's Pale Ale and Robinson's Trooper at £2.30 and fine. There's nothing to recommend this place, but then there's nothing to recommend Camden Town so on that basis, visit if the urge beckons.