Always on the lookout for London’s best Sunday Roast, we kicked of the autumn season with a cracking contender from The Old Queen’s Head.
This local boozer, situated on Essex Road in Islington, has a super welcoming vibe, mixing the traditional with the more – out there. We loved the friendly staff, the weekend papers and the alternative taxidermy. There’s board games a plenty, bloody mary’s a go-go and a real roaring fire.
So far, the Old Queen’s Head was ticking all of our boxes – but could they deliver on the food front?
Veggies will be chuffed with the mushroom wellington (£12.50), whilst meat-eaters have a choice of 32-day aged longhorn beef (£15.50), leg of lamb (£14.50) or roast chicken (£13.50).
All four come with the perfect roast potatoes (crispy on the outside, fluffy inside), beautifully cooked carrots, parsnips, kale and EVERY roast gets a whopping Yorkshire pudding – not just the roast beef! Hurrah! We opted for the roast chicken, which was served sliced, bone-in with lashings of smoked gravy and a huge dollop of aioli – it was glorious. The roast beef was served pink and had its own bone marrow gravy. Portions are decent, you’re not going to go hungry here, but extra sides are available – we couldn’t resist a good dollop of the cauliflower and stilton gratin.
If a roast doesn’t tickle your pickle, burgers are also on offer and they looked cracking. We’ll be returning for a Kevin Bacon before long.
They don’t mess around with starters here but do save room for dessert. Usually there’s a fruit crumble on the go but when we visited it was lemon tart with lemon sorbet or the ‘Van Winkle Sprinkle’ – a more kid friendly ice cream sundae of sorts – although it went down a treat with this big kid too.
Not only that but if you stick around long enough, live music starts at 5pm, taking you straight through the Sunday blues and safely out the other side.
