The Canonbury, Canonbury Place

This is one God-awful refurb. You'd have to try hard to mess up such a great building, and boy, have they put the effort in. They've coated the place in the kind of dated shades of brown that only a DFS catalogue seems to indulge in these days - coupled with pub furniture bought secondhand from a Travelodge just off the A13. They've raised the bar height to a ludicrous level for a pub, making it difficult to see what's in the fridges or even just linger. And the owner's given his creation a super-tacky fake 'crest' and ordered the undertrained and bewildered bar staff to wear even tackier polo shirts sporting said 'crest'. This is the kind of pub that only people from Milton Keynes would think is 'happening'. Disaster.

10 Dec 2009 11:58