The Albion, Barnsbury

So, I think that The Albion is a very nice looking pub. You would think it's large beer garden is great for a few summer drinks with friends, so long as you friends are huge, dull, TOFFS.

I don't think that the staff are particularly rude, but they're obviously told how to behave.

I recently decided to invite my friends to The Albion because it was my birthday. My friends are designers, writers, scientists etc. They may not wear corduroy slacks, Ralf Lauren shirts with a v-neck jumper slung over the shoulders, but certainly respectable folk. They all felt that they were made to feel uncomfortable.

After looking through the menu, we decided to order some food, but were then told (at 8.30pm) that we couldn't, because the garden would be closing and they were not going to serve more food. But, people around us were still ordering and being brought food and the garden didn't close until 10pm.

So we decided to eat a slice of my birthday cake (we were hungry!). Only to have a waiter rush over to tell us that if we cut into the cake, we would have to pay �2 each person. For what? We inquired. This cake was home made, certainly not using any of their ingredients or equipment. We even had brought a knife and serviettes. It would have cost us around �30 to eat the cake! NOT how you would treat a group of people who chose your pub to celebrate a birthday in, so we had to retire to The Draper's, which is altogether a more welcoming and enjoyable experience.

For the record, the single malt whiskey I had tasted awful, I don't know what they did to it, and the Black Sheep ale (a good one) was very poorly looked after. Not what you would expect from somewhere with such a high price on their drinks.

If you don't like the Great British pub, but want somewhere 'posh', pretentious and soulless to go, then I'd fully recommend The Albion.

It can have one star, because they do (reluctantly) sell alcohol.

19 Aug 2009 15:01