To the pub: (from l-r) the Princess of Shoreditch, the Pelican, the Holland, the Harwood Arms
(Picture: John Carey/JW Howard Photography/handout)“I suspect,” says Rob Tecwyn, chef of The Baring in Islington, “that ‘gastropub’ is a dirty word for many, given it’s long been stripped of its original meaning and replaced with a generic and formulaic approach to creating a food-led pub by the major breweries.”
Tecwyn is touching on something that, until the end of last year, could almost be taken as gospel. Profit-hungry breweries had found a blueprint to follow: find a dilapidated boozer, kick out the regulars, and do the place up with lashings of grey paint. But what is new quickly became old: the prescription, weakened by dilution, came to mean places with mediocre dishes, insufferable music and an intolerable pride in their sourdough. But pubs have a hardiness that means they endure. And from last year, a wave of pubs with food have appeared, ones that didn’t insist on explaining the concept — it’s a pub, for f***’s sake, what could need explaining? The Baring, which is terrific, is one of them; just see below. Below are a few recent openings, alongside some old favourites. Tuck in, and drink up.
