The Red Lion & Sun, Highgate, N6

Another very food centric pub, it looks traditional from the outside but the feeling evaporates once within. Beers on were Robinsons Magnum,Olde Hoppy Hen and TT Landlord.A little average.

Dating back to at least the 18th century and rebuilt in 1928, this is a very popular pub which for some reason attracts a more vocal crowd. Food orientated but still manages to qualify as a real pub, this is worth a visit (you can't miss it really as it's right at the centre of any N6 crawl) but not a detour. Ales on: Hook Norton's Old Hooky, Moreland's Original Bitter, Timothy Taylor's Landlord and Purity's Ubu at £1.95 a half which is very cheap for the area. However, it wasn't very good...

Date of visit - August 2013 On the main road out of Highgate going northwards, is The Red Lion and Sun, a food orientated Greene King pub. It’s set back from the main road with a slightly worn and scruffy seating area outside at the front where the rumble of traffic heading to/from the A1 a few miles away is a constant reminder that you’re still in London and not the countryside. Inside a single L shaped bar serves a pub that is perhaps larger in terms of space than it looks from the outside. It’s a featureless functional interior with pastel coloured wood panelled walls, the usual wooden scrubbed tables and chairs and, reflecting the food emphasis, condiments and rolled up paper menus on each table. Perhaps predictably, I was greeted by the usual hissing sound from a large coffee machine on the side of the bar. Pleasingly, there’s no music, TV or fruit machines. A free postcard on a shelf just inside the front door shows the pub in 1887 and shows branding of the London and Burton Brewery. Sadly the etched windows at the front advertising “Brandies” have, predictably, now been replaced by plain glass. At the back of the pub is a small, but quiet, patio from where you are spared the sounds of the traffic. The pub has been in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide for the last few years ( as at August 2013 ) and, perhaps unusually for a place like this, the recent GBG stickers are prominently displayed, as was also the latest issue of London Drinker. It was therefore something of a disappointment to find only two beers on – IPA Gold and Speckled Hen ( or was it Golden Hen ?) . I didn’t see anything to indicate any non GK beers are ever served. Notably, the new edition of CAMRA’s London Pub Walks, which takes you past the pub’s front door, fails to even give the pub a mention. Based on my visit, there’s no pubby feel at all and, despite the GBG listing, a return visit is not envisaged.