The Rosemary Branch, De Beauvoir Town, N1

The Rosemary Branch is a corner pub that has been given the done down treatment making the pub look like it has'nt been done up in years. I thought this was a Fullers tied house but there were no signs saying this outside,i had a drink of Gales HSB and this was very nice there were about three other real ales on the bar London Pride and a Fullers seasonal beer. The pub had bare boards and i did'nt really like this pub that much.

The first thing that I noticed on my approach to this pub was the red neon sign in the window that says ‘bar, restaurant, theatre’. I gleaned that the theatre is upstairs and I was well aware of standing in the bar, but I missed the restaurant, unless it is also upstairs because the small area at the back with mirrors all around the walls surely cannot be classed as a restaurant. The food looked pretty good and was nearing restaurant prices with a sandwich costing £5, but then this is Islington and probably no more expensive than the gastro pubs in the surrounding area. This isn’t a typical gastro pub though as it is a little quirky and disjointed giving some character which many food orientated pubs lack. One of the gripes that I had was with the layout as it wasn’t that busy and there wasn’t any free seating other than perching on the edge of someone else’s table, maybe I should be more sociable! There are no TVs in here, but there are lots of board games available for a £10 deposit and someone with good taste was present as a few Hendrix songs were playing via the jukebox. Being a little topical as it’s the 70th anniversary of the blitz I will mention the German plane hanging from the ceiling that looks like an old prop, maybe from the theatre upstairs. It’s not the most intricate piece of modelling, but I reckon that it is meant to be a Junkers 88 which was one of the aircraft responsible for the ruthless bombing campaign across London during World War 2. There was a good selection of real ale available in the form of Seafarers, Pride, HSB, Summer Ale, Adnams and Butcombe. There was also a selection of premium lagers and the Guinness was spot on, but I found the service to be a little offhand and I’m not a fan of bar staff eating there dinner at the bar whilst intermittently serving people with a ‘my dinner is getting cold’ look in their eye. Some picnic tables can be found on the path outside and during the evening the adjacent side road becomes available for more outside drinking space as the gated premises at the back gets locked up. I prefer a more traditional pub to these purposely rough round the edges book strewn irregularly shaped pubs with a leaning towards food and I like to feel welcomed by the staff so I cannot see myself returning in any great hurry.