The White House, Highbury

Fancy a free holiday in Turkey?

Gone are the days when this pub was a bog standard Wetherspoons pub!! The White House has been taken over by a lovely friendly Turkish family who have turned the outside space into a beautiful traditional Turkish garden. It was really sunny the first afternoon I went there and I really felt like I was on my summer holidays!

The garden is a colourful riot of stunning flowers, vast bean bags and low tables with seating for about 50 people. I was a bit worried about the bean bags at first as I have a bad back, but they are really firm and unbelievably comfortable and there are also little wicker seats for those who prefer something firmer!

The charming owner, Ayhan, offered us a choice of traditional Turkish shisha pipe or a herbal variety with no tobacco or nicotine in it. My friend is a smoker so she tried the tobacco version and I went for the healthier herbal version. They were delicious with gorgeous flavours such as coconut, apple and strawberry.

The food was great and the owners told us that at the end of August they are bringing in a more complete traditional Tukish menu with Turkish Mezze and Shish Kebab on bamboo sticks. We are definitely going back to try it!

The drinks are reasonably priced and after our meal we had some Turkish tea which was really nice. They have a huge array of boardgames available so we played backgammon for a couple of hours after lunch!

In addition to the garden the White House has dozens of other brilliant attractions. There is a regular DJ in the evenings, Karaoke (both English and Turkish!) Turkish Belly Dancing, a pool table and at the weekends you can watch football on the widescreen tv.

This really is a little piece of Turkey hidden away in North London!

I told Ayhan I was going to write a review and he has promised that anyone who prints out this review and brings it in to the pub will get one free drink with the first drink they buy. Brilliant!

20 Aug 2009 14:08