30-32 Albany Street,
Regents Park,
London,
NW1 4EA
0872 148 4243
The ViewLondon Review
Great Portland Street isn’t the first tube stop you think of when making social arrangements.
Like Marylebone proper, and most of London just north of the centre, it seems to be neglected to a puzzling degree despite some nice houses, an intriguingly authentic vibe and one or two rather smart drinking venues.
One of these is the Queen’s Head and Artichoke. It perches cheekily on a corner of Albany Road, all white walls and quiet buzz, completely ignoring the chavvy pub and housing estate up the road, as well as a haughty, stuffy and fabulously named group of townhouses called Coloseum [sic] Row. A mere two or three minutes from the underground, this pub doesn’t give a stuff about its arguably random location – and quite right, for it’s what’s inside that counts.
The interior is entirely panelled with wood, dark and sumptuous and varnished to within an inch of its life. Tables and chairs are heavy and solid too, and look and feel reassuringly expensive. The scheme is completely unpretentious, with paintwork confined to pure white, and some lovely thick mottled glass tiles filling in the window space. Throw in some beautiful barmaids in trendy jeans and you have a fairly gorgeous-looking venue.
The Queen’s Head is a gastropub, and offers not only separate lunch and evening menus but also some outrageously cheap tapas all through the day. Other food is gourmet-rustic in style – lentils, rhubarb and other trendy cottage garden treats dominate. Even if you’re not eating, the Vin Santo with biscotti for £6 would be worth asking about, and I’m certainly planning to return for a try.
All in all, I congratulate this pub wholeheartedly. It’s solid, it’s classy and it’s not too dear, and I was happy to see that quite a few people had noticed and were popping in for dinner or snacks when I visited. It just goes to show that with the right goods for the right prices, you can get people pissed in Great Portland Street.
Queens Head and Artichoke has been reviewed by 2 users