The Tufnell Park Tavern, Tufnell Park, N7

This is a large L-shaped dining pub with a somewhat soulless, stripped out and opened up interior. The main part of the pub is to the front, where a wide space with scuffed floorboards, low tongue and groove wall panels, plain uppers, large windows to the front and right and a dark lincrusta ceiling combine to underwhelming effect. A couple of pillars through the middle of the room break the space up a bit, but it still feels too large and empty, with two rows of tables and chairs failing to fill the space adequately. A drinking ledge with bar stools to the right, looks out to a good sized pavement drinking area with lots of picnic benches and some large upturned beer barrels to rest your pint on. The servery is along the back wall and has an old counter painted in black with a modern light wood top and white tile bar back. Large blackboards are everywhere, listing everything you could possibly order, and this blandness is offset somewhat by a few pieces of modern art and a shelving unit full of ceramic and earthenware pieces. The room extends back into another large open area to the left of the bar, where more seating can be found amidst similar bland decor and a door to an unexplored beer garden. There was no music in the pub, although tunes were audible from the kitchen, which appeared to be chucking out pizzas at a terrific rate. On the bar, Sambrooks Wandle and Sharps Atlantic plus a real cider and a promise that Harveys Sussex Best would be coming soon. The Atlantic was mediocre at best and served to me by a barman who was trying to be polite despite being completely distracted from actually dealing with my order. This felt like quite a decent lively pub that serves the seemingly gentrified local community pretty well, but it was all just so bland and uninteresting, that even a buzzy early evening crowd couldn’t save it. The beer is so-so and hardly the most exciting, so I’m not sure what could entice me back here other than the dearth of pubs in the immediate vicinity.

The Tufnell Park Tavern is a flat roofed pub that is a short walk from Tufnell Park tube station. The pub looked quite smart from the outside and is in what i would consider a posh looking area. Once inside there is a large dog legged shaped room with the bar on the mid right side,the room is bare boarded,there are settees on the left side and normal tables and chairs elsewhere,the rear left area is set aside for diners and was not in use on my Friday dinner visit. There were three real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Purity Mad Goose which was a decent drink,the other real ales were Gales HSB and Tufnell Park Bitter. There was decent background music playing. I thought this was a comfortable and smart pub to have a drink in. Pub visited 2/6/2017

Large, detached building with a plain (verging on the austere) main façade. Inside, there is a brightly-lit daytime café, quite a spacious 'L'-shaped bar (albeit with less seating than you might imagine) and a formal side dining area. Also has a row of wooden picnic benches out front and a patio beer garden to the rear. Two of three handpumps in operation, offering Broadside and Purity Mad Goose (£4.00), with the 'house' Pale unavailable.