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

The Gipsy Queen, NW5

166 Malden Road
NW5
NW5 4BS
Phone: 02079164959

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


hondo . left this review about The Gipsy Queen

L shaped interior with an outdoor area to the rear. 4 real ales and numerous keg served.

On 5th October 2023 - no rating submitted
[User has posted 2883 recommendations about 2820 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve of N21 left this review about The Gipsy Queen

First time to visit this pub for me and I liked this pub a lot and was suitably impressed. The main bar room with its studded yellow banquettes around the perimeter and classic and conventional tables, chairs and stools throughout is well described by the reviewer below. Then hidden out back is quite a spacious, and a bit colourful outside patio drinking area with separate areas including a couple canopied booth seating areas.
Yes there is clearly a focus on food and as becoming of modern London pub interior makeovers the kitchen is exposed behind glass at one end of the pub. Sunday roasts were prominently advertised but then the rest of the food menu seemed to be Mexican with some sort of tie up with an award winning street food vendor.
But it is an independently run establishment and the key selling point for me was more the 4 cask ale pumps and the 18 keg beer lines and the chalk beer board at the other end of the pub which detailed what was on them.
For my visit three ales were available in the shape of the New River Brewery Isle or Rye, Gorgeous Brewery Goofyhoop and Tiny Rebel Stay Puft, a very good Porter. And the Keg lines included three craft brews from Tiny Rebel and further offerings from Siren, ABC, Camden Town and Belleville.
Live music was advertised for Friday evenings and it was very good to see the showing of the current Women’s world cup so prominently promoted as we would all agree this is an increasingly important demographic to attract into the modern pub. The projection TV (the very sensible option to permanent big screens) was not in use for my visit and I also did not particularly notice the CCTV camera screen behind the bar. But if I had had done I would have taken comfort in the fact that this is a pub management that clearly takes the safety and security of its customers and their possessions seriously.
Apart from my pint of stout being at slightly exorbitant Hampstead level prices , I didn’t find a lot not to like here.

On 24th June 2019 - rating: 7
[User has posted 2094 recommendations about 1985 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Tris C left this review about The Gipsy Queen

July 5th 2015:

I've often passed this pub throughout my life - I remember it well as The Gypsy [sic] Queen in the 1970s - and usually on the opposite side of the road.

This was always a rather rough and scummy pub with unsavoury characters hanging around the door as described by Steve C below. Around 1990 the somewhat bizarre decision was made to take this pub still further down market by giving it an Oirish theme, calling it The Westport Inn and bedecking the fascia with green shamrocks. A quarter century later and common sense prevailed with the pub being given a more upmarket rebranding as The Bluebell. Due to tragic circumstances, this wasn't to last and it closed a few months later. The pub's potential however, had been revealed and it reopened under its original name in late June 2015 under the stewardship of the team team behind the very decent Grafton half a mile down the road.

The website shows just how much work has been done to the place since its Bluebell incarnation, so one can only shudder to think what it must have been like as The Westport Inn - twinned with Hannibal Lecter's dungeon perhaps? The pub has a rear staple-shaped bar with original bar back and clock in the parapet as well as a small metal gantry and features a tiled apron which resembles a piece of Bridget Riley's Op Art. The floor is bare boarded with the use of reclaimed and varnished Victorian boards - they look very good indeed and will only improve with age. There are taupe buckskin banquettes to the perimeter whilst furniture is classic and conventional; the right wall is bare brick and as part of the renovation now has two reclaimed Victorian tiled fireplaces. On the table there are wang peonies and tea lights in glass holders. Lighting comes from shallow tin-shaded lights with filament bulbs suspended from the ceiling. Overall the interior is surprisingly airy. Somewhat ominously, there's a large projector TV though it was showing the Hampton Court Flower Show with the sound off. Nevertheless, it wasn't at all attractive, especially given the effort piled into the rest of the pub and gave the place a bit of a naff Wetherspoon's feel; the stereo played, though noise levels were muted. The crowd in here is generally young(ish) and quite hip though I did spot a handful of what I took to be old school locals, bemused at the display of interior cleanliness and the sight of people with teeth that didn't resemble Stonehenge. Out back there's a landscaped beer garden. The lavatories are good.

Beverages? A large array of craft offerings and premium lagers - this is also a bottle shop. Several pumps were present but only one was serving - it's early days so perhaps the other pumps will be brought on line in the near future. My pint of Ubu's Purity cost £4.10 which is very hefty indeed given the area and it was warm and a bit flat; service was friendly and efficient.

Overall I liked this pub a lot, though it has taken decades for me to be tempted in. I am concerned though that the projector will be used for live sport - this is no longer the type of pub that is going to attract the sports TV viewer and if management is tempted to go down this route, I fear they may well lose their newly acquired fashionable and affluent client base. To this end, I'm deducting 3 points for the TV - the pub gets them back when the awful projector is consigned to a skip. Otherwise it's certainly worth a visit and indeed I'd go so far as to say it's worth a detour.

Update 23rd August 2018:

A repeat visit the other night and I was served a good pint of East London Brewing Company's Jamboree which was still an expensive £4.10, a price I wouldn't expect to pay in either Hampstead or Notting Hill, so why so high here? Three points reinstated due to the raised projector screen but I wasn't impressed with the site of a TV screen behind the bar displaying a 16-image montage of all the pub's CCTV cameras; is this a pub or a supermax prison? I also wasn't impressed with the gaggle of chavvy young women swearing and shouting at each other from the bar to the pavement - couldn't they drink in the nice beer garden provided? So then, three points taken back due to Big Brother watching me and the loud mouthed girls.

Update:

Paid £3.00 for a half of Purity's Mad Goose the other, day which is obscene.

On 2nd March 2018 - rating: 4
[User has posted 1955 recommendations about 1922 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Alan Winfield left this review about The Gipsy Queen

The Gipsy Queen is a corner pub that is a short walk up Malden Road from the Sir Robert Peel.
Once inside there is an L shaped room with the bar facing,the floor is bare boarded,there is bench seating to the front the front and rear left and some normal tables and chairs.
There is also an open kitchen to the rear.
There was one real ale on the bar which i could not make out the name of but it said Hammerton on it,this was a decent drink.
Background music was playing.
Some friendly locals gave me directions to the Lord Southampton which was nice of them.
I thought this was a decent pub and i was happy enough having a drink here.

Pub visited 2/6/2017

On 7th August 2017 - rating: 7
[User has posted 6113 recommendations about 6113 pubs]


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Moby Duck left this review about The Gipsy Queen

A fairly large open plan corner pub that seems to lean slightly toward the food side of things but manages to remain sufficiently pubby,unfortunately I have managed to lose my notes of my visit some three weeks ago but recall three or four beers available on handpump and my choice of Southwark Chinook was Ok though nothing special,there were a few customers in on an early Saturday lunchtime and this made it quietly pleasant. The pub itself is decent enough but I wouldn't go out of my way to return.

On 28th February 2016 - rating: 6
[User has posted 1868 recommendations about 1841 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


hondo . left this review about The Bluebell

under new management

On 19th June 2015 - no rating submitted
[User has posted 2883 recommendations about 2820 pubs]


Please Note: This review is over a year old.


Steve C left this review about Westport Inn

My brief visit here last Saturday evening didn’t get off to the best of starts as I had forgotten to remove my invisibility cloak from the previous night’s escapades in Middle Earth meaning that the group of seven smokers in the doorway couldn’t see my approach. After realising my mistake I let it be known that I was in fact trying to get into the pub and wasn’t standing in the street staring gormlessly at their skin illustrations. One of the kind gentlemen took pity on my plight and begrudging moved slightly to the left so as to let me edge past as if shimmying along the ledge of obtuseness. When I finally made it through the door I found myself in a local estate pub complete with Phil Collins on the jukebox and a karaoke machine in the process of being rigged up in the corner.

I was going to turn on my heels, but I’m glad that I didn’t as the gentleman behind the bar was very polite and served a decent pint of Guinness. The locals inside the pub also seemed a little friendlier than their comrades outside and after a quick eyeball I was left to sup my pint in peace.

It came as no surprise that there was no real ale amongst the ubiquitous standard draught products and as expected there were a few Sky Sports advertisements dotted around the pub giving kick-off times for the football which is shown on the large plasma screen. There is also a well used dartboard up on the wall and a pool table that was out of use due to the impending Karaoke night.

The back half of this U-shaped pub was empty with little lighting and I got the feeling that it is seldom used, but I could be way off the mark.

To be honest, I found this pub a little depressing and I think that there are far better pubs in the area so I cannot see myself returning.

On 15th May 2010 - rating: 4
[User has posted 5179 recommendations about 5148 pubs]