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Cambridge PuG Crawl, Friday 5th April 2024 with Bucking Fastard on the Pub Forum

The Red Lion & Sun, Highgate, N6

25 North Road
N6
N6 4BE
Phone: 02083401780

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Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6 of 10) Add Review see review guidelines


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve of N21 left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

This is now very much a gastro pub / restaurant ( it recently made it into the Time Out list of 20 best Gastro pubs in London), and I can give personal experience that the food in here is indeed superb. There is a large rigid gazebo covering the outside front section of this pub containing bench seating, which I guess is a hangover from the pandemic and could well now be permanent, and inside the largely stripped out interior very much feels more of a restaurant than a pub.
The bar does have four handpumps and two of these were in operation for our visit and I couldn’t fault the pint of TT Landlord I had to complement the meal. By all means search it out for its menu, but if you are just after a pint then there are much better ‘pubby’ options nearby.

On 20th March 2023 - rating: 6
[User has posted 2094 recommendations about 1985 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Moby Duck left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

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.

On 4th April 2017 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1868 recommendations about 1841 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Tris C left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

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...

On 7th April 2016 - rating: 5
[User has posted 1955 recommendations about 1922 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


john gray left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

Busy food led with lots of outside seating. Grey painted interior makes it a bit dull. My pint of Wolf -Battle of Britain had an off taste but the brewers rather than the pubs fault.

On 16th November 2013 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1023 recommendations about 1009 pubs]


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John Bonser left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

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.

On 29th October 2013 - rating: 5
[User has posted 560 recommendations about 560 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Real Ale Ray left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

An Elizabethan style pub built in the 1920's. Quite a popular local this one and have really upped their game food wise. They make all their dishes on site and that includes the bread, pasta and sauces. Prices are very reasonable considering the area it's in. Four on handpump Morland's, Royal London, IPA and Copper Dragon all were good. Will return.

On 30th July 2011 - rating: 7
[User has posted 3378 recommendations about 3378 pubs]


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Rex Rattus left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

This is a Greene King house, so the typical range was on offer. I had the Morland’s Original, at £3.10 a pint, which was OK but had the distinctive GK taste. The pub is set back from the road by 20 yards or so, allowing space for some tables in front of the pub. Inside it has a typical layout – the bar counter is directly in front of you as you enter; there are a few tables and chairs in the immediate bar area; with the room opening up to the right and to the rear of the bar counter. This area on the right was occupied entirely by diners during my late lunchtime visit – indeed the pub was doing a brisk trade.
Just about everywhere (walls, ceiling, bar counter frontage) was painted that light grey cum duck egg colour you see so frequently in pubs nowadays. But there were a couple of features worth mentioning – the fireplace on the left that had what looked like a tapestry coat of arms above it, and the fireplace on the right that was being used for the purpose for which it was built – i.e. a real log fire was on the go. Now that was a welcoming sight on a cold November day. This is not a bad pub, as long as you’re happy to drink GK ales, but I doubt whether I’ll be paying a return visit.

On 11th November 2010 - rating: 5
[User has posted 2606 recommendations about 2520 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve C left this review about The Red Lion & Sun

I went into The Red Lion and Sun early on a Friday evening a few weeks ago for the first time in over a year. Unsurprisingly it has been converted into a completely non-smoking establishment. I would imagine that any pub that has a refurb from now on will revert straight to a no smoking policy, but hopefully some will avoid being made into a gastro pub!

I'll give the staff 10/10 for eagerness and the pints of Amstell I had were very good. It wasn't very busy and you could tell that it hadn't been open long, but I saw no obvious reason why this place can't become very popular, if it already isn't.

This is another pub that can go onto the endless list of pubs that I can take the other half for a spot of lunch.

On 4th July 2007 - rating: 6
[User has posted 5179 recommendations about 5148 pubs]