King's Head, Islington

pub details:

let's meet here
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location:

Islington

address:

59 Essex Road, N1 2SF

phone:

0871 258 9662*
* calls cost 10p/minute, click here for more about 0871 numbers.

nearest stations:

Essex Road railway station
(390m) - zone 2

Angel London Underground station
(720m) - zone 1

Highbury and Islington London Overground station London Underground station
(930m) - zone 2

Caledonian Road and Barnsbury London Overground station
(1.1Km)

Canonbury London Overground station
(1.3Km)

bus routes:

38, 56, 73, 341, 476

how to find it:

Leave Angel tube, turn right and walk up Upper Street, fork right on to Essex Road and walk along for a few minutes. You'll see the pub on your left presently. Essex Road: leave the station and turn right, back towards Upper Street. Walk for a few minutes and you'll see the pub on your right.

click for directions to King's Head from wherever you are

click here for a larger map

nearby attraction(s):

Business Design Centre (490m)

Sadler's Wells Theatre (1Km)

Street View - click to see the area around the King's Head

Its nice to see that not all places in N1 have succumbed to the "strip it out, play loud music and call it a bar" trap. So despite a recent sprucing up, which included painting the outside a different colour, this is an old-style local pub for old-style locals. On occasion - especially at the quieter end of the week - one can get the feeling that some of the older gruff regulars don't approve of your presence, but on our Friday night visit there was a wider clientele than you'd find in any other nearby pub and the atmosphere was correspondingly conducive. The ale of choice is Bombardier which was well kept, the service excellent and the food reasonable. The music too was good, having improved since our last visit when we had to endure the blandness of mini-cab drivers favourite Smooth FM. The only negative was that we spied a customer being served a lager in a used half pint glass which had been left on the bar; we know it wasn't theirs but will assume it was a one-off oversight.

reviewed:
20/4/2007

Eating at the King's Head ... we last ate here on 20/4/2007

Food like scampi and chips and burgers excellent value at under a fiver and while probably not in the running for a Michelin star, it was well prepared and we enjoyed eating here.

- quality