The Prince, Stoke Newington, N16

A decent sized street corner pub with benches and tables running around the exterior but not for use after 9pm.The interior has been stripped out in that gastro pub style,with trendy hanging short fluorescent tube lighting suspended from the ceiling. The large plate glass windows give lots of natural light to the large dining type tables and bench seating inside.There is exposed brickwork on the way to a staircase giving access to the loos and a first floor photo exhibition,an area which can also be hired for a private party.There is an internal corridor to a rear walled beer garden. I was peckish and chose from a short menu featuring mainly veggie and vegan food ,although there are meat options.My vegan burger and sweet potato fries was very well cooked and worth the £13.50,filling and delicious. At the bar there were four handpumps offering Five Points XPA,Harvey's Sussex Best ,Thornbridge Brother Rabbit (NBSS 3.5,£4.35) and a Seacider. A good pit stop and with passable real ale worth a visit on any crawl of the area.Better than I expected or feared in this hip neighbourhood.

There were three ales on in here - St Peter's Brewery Organic Bitter, Otley Thai Bo Sour, and West Berkshire Brewery Mr Chubb's Bitter, with a fourth pump unclipped. An unusual selection I think, but I went for what looked like the safe option of Mr Chubb's bitter. This is very much a gastropub, with a daily menu available. The Prince Burger, with cheese, is £9.5 (one decimal place is deemed to be sufficient for their pricing strategy) with chips an additional £4. Other stuff is essentially gastro - nduja on toast is £4.5 (I know what toast is, but nduja?); goose rillette, with fig compote and sourdough toast is £6.9. The main bar area at the front is neatly divided into drinking and dining sections - drinkers at the front where there is a mix of tall tables/tall stools and normal tables and chairs, and diners at the back of the room where tables were all laid for diners. There's also another large room beyond the bar area dedicated to diners. Food is clearly the main driving force here. As I was planning to have something to eat (avoiding the nduja of course) I sat at one of the dining tables in the bar area. The tables looked very smart with cutlery wrapped in linen napkins, but I reckon the deployment of my old beer sodden King Rat beermat on which to place my pint of Mr Chubb's improved the look of the table immeasurably. My burger came up a bit too rare for my taste, but at least it was served on a plate, and the chips didn't come in a little bucket or suchlike. It came with a couple of tiny dishes with some white and red stuff in them; obviously neglected in favour of English mustard. Unfortunately the plate was a bit too small, and when I tackled my burger with a knife and fork (I'm old fashioned that way) some of the chips made a desperate break for freedom by hurling themselves onto the table. But, hey, you can't have everything. There's no decor to speak of, and any original features have long been given the heave-ho. As you might expect there's some exposed brickwork around the place, and and the bar counter's a modern piece of work with the front a sort of herringbone wood parquet style. The music they were playing was some sort of dirge-like hip-hop rap crap, but it did have the positive effect of drowning out, to some extent, the crying child. In fact, now that I think of it, the baby buggies were here in brigade strength on my Saturday lunchtime visit. The washrooms (toilets to you and me) are upstairs, as is some further seating, and I also saw a door indicating the way to the garden, but I didn't explore it. This is not the sort of pub to which I'm likely to return, but I have to say that my pint of Mr Chubb's was in excellent nick.

Official site of The Prince - www.theprincen16.com

Official site of The Prince - www.theprincen16.com