The Lion & Unicorn, Kentish Town, NW5

A fine looking Young's house and Theatre pub (first floor),with a large patio garden with space heaters to the front.The interior has been gentrified with lots of Farrow & Ball wall colourings.The initial seating area is also the drinking area and has a mix of furniture,mainly square tables but some chairs are bound in bright leather.An interior designer has been at work,the modern bar back is full of bottles and attractive.There is a mid building double sided real fireplace kicking out some good heat and quite a feature.To the otherside is a more formal dining area with tables fully set,while beyond is a rear courtyard seating area. There are 4 handpumps offering on my trip Youngs Original and Special with a single guest of Redemption Big Chief (good nick,NBSS 4,£5.60pp served in a branded glass).I didn't eat but plenty were and the whole operation looked professional with attention to detail. With Young's houses now offering a well regarded guest ale ,there is always a reason to visit,and the Big Chief hit the spot.A bit chintzy but thoroughly decent,I would pop in again.

Official site of The Lion & Unicorn - www.thelionandunicornnw5.co.uk

Official site of The Lion & Unicorn - www.thelionandunicornnw5.co.uk

This is quite an upmarket looking gastro pub, easily reached from Kentish Town tube station. You enter into a bare boarded seating area with plain tables and chairs plus a single high table with bar stools. Large windows along two sides of the room create a light, airy feel which is further enhanced by the pastel-shaded colour scheme and some admittedly weird wallpaper depicting images of caviar tins. A few black and white photos liven up the wall space and there are also various promotional boards around the room and a liberal amount of fairy lights, mostly strung around the windows. An L-shaped servery dominates the rear left corner of the room and has a nice wood panelled counter front, mirrored end pillar and traditional bar back. Some sofas can be found opposite the main part of the bar, arranged in front of a fireplace which has large plain mirrors above it. This has the unfortunate effect of creating a terrible pinch point, as those stood at the bar quickly fill the limited space between the counter and the sofas, making it very difficult to pass through to the rear dining room. This is a smartly furnished space with a more formal feel to it than the front bar, despite having very similar decor for the most part. Doors to the rear lead out to a garden, which I did not explore in the dark, although I did spot the decent sized, fenced-off seating area outside the front of the pub. Music was playing in the background but this was easily drowned out by a good post-work crowd, many of whom soon vanished when the attached theatre opened its doors. The bar supports four hand pumps, all of which were in action during my visit, offering a choice of Sambrooks Wandle, Wimbledon Copper Leaf, Young’s Ordinary and Redemption Big Chief. The latter cost me £5.10 for a pint, backing up the feeling that this pub is aiming for a more affluent, upmarket clientele than the average pub in the area might be shooting for. I don’t normally like this kind of pub, but there was something about this place that made me feel quite comfortable here and I could have quite happily stayed for a few more pints had I not needed to rush off to a gig at the nearby Forum. It’s lost almost all of its original features and no doubt much of its character, but has retained a good pub feel, in the front bar at least, and offers some interesting, well kept ale too. Not a bad option to keep in mind when in this part of town.

Stripped down open plan gastro pub near Kentish Town station, half given over for food, the other more pub like. Wood tables & chairs. A woman was feeding her designer dog which was sitting on one of the sofas. £4.40 for a pint of Youngs Bitter seems to be extracting the Michael slightly, well kept beer but all round a bit of a pub that seems to think its better than it is?

Checked out all the GBG entries in Kentish Town and this was the only one that was a disappointment. Very high prices. No atmosphere at all - like a hotel bar. Beer (Redemption Big Chief) was kept OK but not really my sort of pint. Plenty of other choices in the area. Visit blogged at http://bit.ly/2wM3nj2

There were five handpumps, two advertising beers that were available soon, with the other three dispensing Young's Bitter, Redemption Big Chief, and Twickenham Grandstand (£2.35 a half). Grandstand seems to be available all over the place at the moment, but I imagine that we won't see so much of it when the rugby's finished. I glanced at the menu on the outside wall, and it appeared to be gastro food at gastropub prices (like the beer prices). There's a mix of furnishings in the main bar area - a sofa, a few armchairs, a couple of tall tables/tall stools, a settle, and one or two large tables with normal chairs. I try and avoid occupying a 6-seater table when I'm on my own, but here that was the best bet, and it was fairly quiet on a Wednesday lunchtime. There were sprigs of flowers on all the tables. A room on the right, connected to the bar area via an archway, had all tables laid for diners, and which leads out to a garden at the back. There's more outside seating in an enclosed area at the front, which was veritable sun trap and very pleasant as this pub is located in a back street. There's a theatre upstairs. But this pub is now nothing like the backstreet boozer it no doubt once was. The bar counter may be original, but everything else of heritage value has long gone - it's a thoroughly madeover pub. There was a reasonable number of customers in on Wednesday lunchtime so they were clearly doing something right. I guess enough people like these modern and luxuriously appointed places to make them more viable than their down to earth predecessors. Actually I don't mind a bit of luxury now and then, but in here you definitely pay the price for it.

This area has changed a fair bit since the last reviews and so has this pub. I wonder if locals such as Jon Snow, Charles Dance or Damien Lewis are regulars? I passed it a few years ago but didn't enter as it looked a bit rough; no longer. This was once The Royal Arms and 2016 marks its first entry into the GBG and it's also a member of the CAMRA LocAle scheme. Gone is the downmarket pub of old, the dartboard, pool table and TV sport having been consigned to the skip. This is a large, mainly open plan pub with a very contemporary interior. It's not designer chic with weird embellishments, but equally it's not a traditional boozer either. Food is served but I don't know if it's true gastro or the likes of 'posh' burgers or fish and chips; it's the rear that seems to be the more geared towards dining. The floor is bare boarded and part of the bar back is tiled. Furniture is rather mixed and eclectic as is the lighting; the Unicorn Theatre is upstairs. There's a patio out front and decent-sized garden to the rear. Music is muted and unsurprisingly, the colour scheme is blue/grey. A friendly barman serving Sharp's Dooom Bar, Redemption's Big Chief, Young's Bitter, a pump with clip covered whilst settling and Truman's Rio Gold which was rather good and so it should be at £4.40 a pint which is obscene for the area; perhaps Dance et al do drink here after all. This is a decent undemanding pub. There are some locals of old who are comprehensively outnumbered by professional types. I'd happily come here again, though there's not much in NW5.