An in-depth review of the splendid gastropub overlooking Primrose Hill…
The Queens.
The Queens
I love pub food. The very phrase “pub grub” conjures an image of joyful, laid-back eating and drinking. But I love the gastropub even more. It’s fine dining and good cheer rolled into one. It’s sexy. The Queen’s is a gastropub that can easily be described in such a way. I have been to The Queen’s a good number of times now and cannot recommend it enough.
The Food at The Queens
On my first visit to The Queen’s I ordered the chicken, leek and smoked ham pie. The pie came with some potato and cauliflower but was in desperate need of gravy. It was just too dry. In all fairness, on my later trips to The Queen’s I saw the pie being served with miniature gravy boats so I’ll have to assume I was simply unlucky.
During my second visit to The Queen’s, I got the cod and chips. This was a more robustly handsome dish which I had observed previously being eaten by my peers with a little envy. The portion of chips admittedly could be bigger, but they were nice chunky things and the size of the battered cod more than made up for it. While I enjoyed my fish and chips very much, yet another dish caught my eye that night, and once again, I couldn’t help feeling a little envious; I felt like I wanted to order everything at once just so I could know for sure which dish was the best.
The meal in question was a rather uncommon looking risotto which I simply had to order during my third visit to The Queen’s. The risotto itself turned out to be surprisingly hard, but the truffle oil, mushrooms, and lumps of white cheese made it really delicious, even if the flavours didn’t come together in the way I would have expected them to. And the large glass of picpoul de pinet I consumed with it made everything better.
But when it came to fancying other people’s meals, this third round at The Queen’s was no exception. A fellow member of my running group called Dan had ordered the steak and chips; it was by far the most expensive meal on the menu and certainly looked it. I was enjoying my own meal, but there across the table from me was the most beautiful steak, accompanied by those big chunky chips and shining metal cups of ketchup and mayonnaise. It is easy to imagine a mouth-watering steak and chips, but a sophisticated steak and chips? My hungry eyes bored into Dan’s meal as my hands fed my mouth on autopilot.
What about the service at The Queen’s?
When I first began visiting The Queen’s, we were living in the thick of Covid. Nothing was normal, least of all dining out. We were all encouraged to download an app and order from our phone. Despite this however, the waiters always tried to indulge us whenever possible, if we had to stop them mid stride and ask for an extra pint or a jug of water for the table, they never made a big deal. Even more helpful were they when it came to finding a place to sit. When my running group piled in after our Wednesday run, we were always a big crowd, meaning we often had to rearrange tables; the staff were always happy to let us build our own little make shift den, and as a result, The Queen’s became our home every Wednesday for quite some time.
What’s it like to dine at The Queen’s?
Of course, if you want to be smart and make a booking beforehand, you’re only going to get a better experience. There’s a large nook with very comfortable seating for big families and groups on the ground floor in the more “pubby” part of the establishment. The Front Runners and I piled in there once, and while it’s obviously a pain if the person in the middle suddenly needs the loo, it was incredibly cosy and made us feel like the kings of the bar. Or maybe I should say Queens…
Most of the time however, us Front Runners went straight upstairs to our habitual quarters. On my third visit at Queen’s, when I ate that peculiar yet tasty risotto and salivated over what simply must be the king of their menu, we had booked the table on the balcony and this elevated our experience at The Queen’s to a whole new level. Forget eating in a pub, this was alfresco dining, overlooking the beautiful Primrose Hill and setting the bar of what The Queen’s is capable of even higher.
To add fuel to this judgement, I’ll move right to drinks. While it’s nice to have a pint of beer with your pub grub – and The Queen’s serve no small range of beers – The Queen’s has an excellent wine menu. I was so impressed with it on my first trip, that although I’d already had two beers, I simply couldn’t leave without ordering a large glass of French white. Not only is it beautiful food and friendly flexible service, its range of drinks combined with the quality and size of its space makes The Queen’s a fantastic place to try new things with your friends.
Returning to my very first experience at The Queen’s, when I went from beer to wine, Dan, a big whisky drinker, learning that I wished to get into whisky myself, (I’m fairly unfamiliar with the stuff; it is as yet a new unconquered taste for me), let me try some of his whisky. And, by my third trip to The Queen’s as we sat outside on the balcony, after the splendid picpoul de pinet I had with my risotto, I ordered a whisky and ginger ale. I let Dan choose the whisky for me and there was obviously a decent option because he chose one I had never heard of. Laphroaig Islay. The ginger ale mixer was also his suggestion. Boy, when that glass of whisky was put in front of me the smell was so strong I thought I surely couldn’t stomach it. But with the ginger ale it was very drinkable, and has now opened me to drinking more whisky in the future.
What I hoped to demonstrate by this story, is that The Queen’s is a pub in which I have some great memories, both of food and drink, and great social dos,getting to know great people and trying new things.It’sa restaurant where I can order my comforting tasty favourites, or try something new and be surprised, but never disappointed, even if I always had my gaze fixed on someone else’s food. With that consideration, it’s hard to know if it was the tantalizing thought of what each other dish tasted like which brought me back or whether it was simply the great moments I experienced there. The wise guess would surely be a combination of both. The Queen’s may bring out the worst of my greed, but it brings out the best of the British gastropub, and has given me memories of food and friends I will never forget.
Atmosphere: 9/10
Service: 8/10
Food: 7/10
The Queens is a gastropub situated in Primrose Hill. The nearest tube stations are Chalk Farm and Kentish Town.
