Edinboro Castle, Camden Town, NW1

Unbranded M&B (Castle) gastro-pub with little of interest left inside the much-altered room layout and thorough refurbishment(s), but it certainly benefits from having a decent-sized beer garden for central London (featuring regular barbecues during the summer). Doom Bar, Pride and Robinson's Trooper available from the five handpumps.

This pub is positioned rather unpromisingly next to a train line and away from the main Camden strip, but it still seems to attract a good deal of custom, thanks in part to its garden which is particularly large for this part of town. The pub has a bare boarded interior with the servery running along the end wall. Standard tables and chairs have been positioned in the wide space opposite the bar, but I found them to be dirty, with scraps of old menus stuck to the surfaces (plus part of my copy of the Evening Standard which had firmly attached itself by the time I left). The décor is remarkably bland with only a few fairly lights, hung around the countless blackboards that line the walls, providing any kind of focal point. A few Halloween themed bits were already on display, several weeks early. The most interesting thing I could find was the eclectic array of light fittings which covered a range of styles, but I’m really scratching around at this point. An open kitchen can be viewed to the right of the bar and beyond this there is a raised seating space that is arguably the best spot in the whole pub. This end of the room has a decent fireplace with a large plain mirror above and a book swap and collection of board games were also spotted. The garden is definitely the best feature here, offering plenty of picnic benches with parasols and a fixed shelter in a surprisingly green setting. Music played quietly on my Tuesday evening visit and I noticed at least one TV screen although it remained off throughout my stay. An intact menu was laid on my table and it listed slightly fancy interpretations of pub classics with most mains coming in around the £11 mark. Six hand pumps were dispensing Black Sheep Bitter, Sharps Doom Bar, Fullers London Pride and Wadworth 6X, although the latter quickly went off, joining the two other unused pumps. The keg range included beers from the likes of Meantime and Camden, some Belgian and German brews and something called Curious IPA. My pint of Black Sheep was pretty good, but such an ale range can hardly be described as interesting. This place clearly offers something a bit different in Camden terms, thanks to the garden that really comes into its own in summer. However, the rest of the pub doesn’t quite match up and the whole place could do with a good spruce up as well as a broader ale selection leaving me with the feeling that the pub was full of unrealised potential.

Official site of the Edinboro Castle, contains menu - www.edinborocastlepub.co.uk

Official site of the Edinboro Castle, contains menu - www.edinborocastlepub.co.uk