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Beer of the Week (w/e 23rd March 2025) with aleandhearty
on the Pub Forum
Image posted by Tris C
Submitted on Thursday, 11th July 2024
With picture contributions to 2347 other pubs
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Detail Pages
The Salisbury Hotel, Harringay, N4
N4
N4 1JX
Served areas
Reviews of The Salisbury Hotel (Average Rating: 8 of 10) see review guidelines
Pub SignMan left this review about The Salisbury Hotel
This is a pretty amazing Victorian survivor of the sort that crops up here and there around this part of London. It’s a highly ornate, multiple roomed pub with a great interior that merits extended exploration. You enter through a fine left-hand side porch with a mosaic tile floor, etched glass door panes and intricate stained glass upper panels, plus a detailed metal filigree pub name sign above the entrance, eventually emerging into the spacious bar area. Here you’ll find smart parquet flooring, red wallpapered walls with a plain upper strip, an unusual, padded bench to left with individual seats, a button backed sofa and lots of standard chairs elsewhere. The bar is to the right and has a dark wood counter and grand matching bar back with detailed columns, etched glasswork and some huge stuffed birds on the top. A lit fireplace to the rear left has an attractive mirror above, large ugly blackboards cover a side wall and list the full drinks selection, whilst large pillars run through the middle with decorative capitals, lintels, and smart roses around lights. There’s also a big collection of plants in the front windows which makes it feel a bit like drinking in a greenhouse if you’re sat too close by. Moving through to the rear bar, you find an amazing mosaic tile floor, walls painted in a deep shade of red with another lit fireplace, more individual seat benches plus a collection of small round mirrors and two snugs to the rear - one with a very low entrance. A door to the rear left was signed for a ‘Lounge’ but I didn’t explore. The room is split in two by drawn curtains for no apparent reason and the bar here has more blackboards above and some beautiful wooden pillars along the counter. Back to the entrance, a door to the right leads into another bar, which has a slightly more relaxed feel, with a chequer tiled floor, huge arched windows along two sides, an etched glass former entrance porch, more potted plants in the windows and a defunct section of servery also lined with much greenery. Button backed banquettes extend around the perimeter, with standard tables and chairs elsewhere and two low slung sofas at the far end. Some of the disused porches have high tables and stools in them which gives you the feeling of almost being able to drink outdoors. Music was playing but it was hard to hear anything above the noise from a large Thursday night crowd.
The pub always offers a selection of cask ale and the options on this visit were Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay and Late Red plus Black Sheep Bitter. Three real ciders occupied the remaining handpulls and my pint of Whitstable Bay was in good shape, poured by one of the efficient bar team. The pub was packed on arrival, and it took most of my visit before I was able to bag myself a seat.
There’s a lot to admire in this pub, and despite having the chance to wander around the place quite extensively whilst waiting for a table to come free, I still feel like there’s plenty more to discover. The ale range was perhaps a bit pedestrian – Shepherd Neame brews aren’t likely to see a mad rush for the bar – but the beer seemed well-kept and worthy of recent inclusions in the Good Beer Guide. I really liked this place and thought it was well worth seeking out – a must do for anyone interested in traditional pub interiors.
Date of visit - 10th October 2024
On 3rd January 2025
- rating: 8
[User has posted 3322 recommendations about 3322 pubs]
David Walton left this review about The Salisbury Hotel
It is hard to describe this venue as anything other than an absolutely magnificent venue. Everything about it is lovely. True it is a bit of a trek from transport hubs but as with all pilgrimages you have to do the hard yards to get your reward. It is what Tim Martin experienced as wet dreams in his youth when he fantasised about the perfect pub. Forget Orwell’s Moon Under Water the perfect pub has a name and it is the Salisbury N4. It is the combination of a magnificent premises, the mosaic floors, the beautiful tiling, the exotic, indeed seductive and erotic flow of the bar around the venue. Add to that the vibrancy of the entire age spectrum enjoying the perfectness of the pub. The young, my age and the elderly were all revelling in this venue during my meagre hour plus stay on a crawl when I am generally arriving and thinking about the next tick. This is the tick for all ticks, come here and abandon your planned crawl, start, mid or towards the end and accept you have found pub perfection. True, you get reminders in the lavs saying protect your stuff because there are high bag thefts in the area, but look beyond the practical but mere mechanistic.
No point listing beers as if some regular reminder. Took a photo of the current chalk board before tucking into three or four of the perfectly kept cask ales. You arrive here with plans of the next venue and even if they are some of the great alternatives in N4, save them for another time when undoubtedly you will also revisit here. As when Jack Nicklaus was reminded in 1973 he had been seeking perfection all his life after when witnessing the Belmont Stakes he saw it with Secretariat’s 31 length victory, this is pub perfection. I thought I had found the best with the Robin in N4 but now I have found another, unrivalled, location also in N4, the UK’s best pub postcode in my view!
On 14th August 2024
- rating: 10
[User has posted 603 recommendations about 603 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about The Salisbury Hotel
This is a corner pub on the grand scale: a magnificent building with several entrances, some of which were not in use, and stacks of benches waiting to be put back out whenever the weather became suitable. I arrived half an hour before 5pm opening time and had to walk around to keep warm, but it was worth it to get to see the glorious interior. This was the final pub on my London's Beautiful Pubs route and a fitting climax. I challenge anyone to say this is not a beautiful pub!
The large central bar has several rooms around it, though there's an airy and open feel about the place. The corridor from the door by which I entered has a small private booth but mostly it's just normal pub furniture. Each room has a slightly different character, but there are details in the ceilings that are shared by all. See my photos for some of the features, or better still, come along and see for yourselves.
There were three real ales on offer: Fullers London Pride; Koomor Trunk, a Kentish bitter; and Three Sods Old Normal, a pale ale. I went for the latter, but after finding it not to my taste and having decided to eat here, I went for the Kentish bitter as well. It seems the pub business and the Totopos Mexican restaurant are separate businesses: there are menus on the tables and the bar staff will direct one of the serving staff to your table if you don't catch them as they go around. They do all home-made tortillas, enchilladas and nachos; I had the vegan version of the nachos, and it was good but quite honestly half as many would have been quite enough and I might go for something different another time. The beer was under £4.50/pint and my food was £11.
This pub is quite a long way out from the centre, and another time I might look for other pubs in this part of town to make a more localised crawl. One thing's for sure: there won't be anything to touch this for magnificence and beauty.
On 5th October 2021
- rating: 10
[User has posted 4216 recommendations about 3884 pubs]
View more reviews of The Salisbury Hotel (9)
Pubs Galore is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
- Official site of The Salisbury Hotel - thesalisburyhotelpub.co.uk
- Randomness Guide to London - Salisbury entry
- Facebook - The Salisbury
- CAMRA WhatPub :: The Salisbury Hotel - whatpub.com
- Historic Pub Interiors - pubheritage.camra.org.uk
Pub Details
Pub details supplied by members of this site to the best of their knowledge. Please check with pub directly before making a special trip.
- Accommodation : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Bar Billiards : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Beer Festivals : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Beer Garden : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- CAMRA Discount : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Car Park : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Child Friendly : Yes last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Darts : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Dog Friendly : Yes last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Function Room : Yes last updated 03 May 2022 by paulof horsham
- Hot Food : Yes last updated 11 February 2010 by hondo .
- Jukebox : Yes last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Karaoke : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Live Music : Yes last updated 03 January 2025 by Pub SignMan
- Live TV Sports : Yes last updated 03 January 2025 by Pub SignMan
- Micropub : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Pinball : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Pool Table : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Quiz Night : Yes last updated 03 May 2022 by paulof horsham
- Real Ale : Yes last updated 11 February 2010 by hondo .
- Real Cider : Yes last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- Wheelchair Access : No last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
- WiFi : Yes last updated 23 May 2018 by Komakino .
