‘The most undiluted, multi-sensory fun I have had since 2020’
The Plimsoll is a pub down a side road in Finsbury Park, north London, doing an ebullient trade serving burgers and more, that knows exactly what it is. It is not remotely a gastropub. It isn’t a shiny-floored, exorcised former boozer with its heart dragged out, replaced with heavily styled guinea fowl on white china and gelato of the day, Noble Isle hand soap, piles of neatly folded Egyptian cotton hand towels and a soothing George Ezra compilation floating into the private dining room. There are hundreds of pubs like this across Britain and although they’re very handy for anyone wanting a “civilised” meal with “the guys”, I’m not sure these same diners would appreciate the Plimsoll.
Or understand why tables in this not-gastropub are currently like gold dust, meaning they’d most likely settle for a table for two at 9.15pm sometime midweek, late March, only to find the menu is scallop bhuna fried pizza, or liver with colcannon, served on your great-gran’s best yet mismatched crockery, in a rather dark, brazenly “pubby” old pub, heaving with the ghosts of its past as an old-school drinking den, but now with Sonic Youth blaring out. Or they might turn up on a weekend or an Arsenal match day, to find there’s a very limited menu. At this point, some customers may become livid and bewildered, the two main emotions behind almost all Yelp.com restaurant reviews. Why would I send people there who’d be irked by what it isn’t? Especially as I do not want the table shortage to become sillier.
