The Duchess of Kent, The Buffalo Bar

Everyone likes The Duchess of Kent, a friendly gastro at the slightly less gentrified end of the Liverpool Road. Difficult to describe because it does a pretty decent job of being most things to most people. It's light and airy, with a Provencal paint job and a liberal spread of surrealist paintings. At the same time it's warm and cozy with leather armchairs arranged around the roaring fire. And, of course, like most pubs in the area, it's definitely not one to visit on match-days.

The pub is shaped like a giant L, with an (Islington style) drinkers bit at the front complete with sofas and the daily papers, and a large non-smoking dining area at the rear. The food served is decent enough (gastroburgers on breadboards, daily specials depending on the catch of the day) but feels a little over-priced due to their strange practice of rounding all the prices up to the nearest fiver.

Gastroboy celebrated his birthday there over the weekend, a disorganised affair involving around 20 people all arriving and leaving at different times. Perhaps consequently, the service was a little random, with some table orders taken for food and drink, others ordering at the bar and things generally not getting cleared away. None the less, the antipodean leaning staff were extremely friendly ans helpful, a refreshing change from the snooty attitude found in many of Islingtons top-end gastros or the pretty ineptitude of the staff in some of the noisier youth-oriented establishments.

A great pub.

The Buffalo Bar is a tiny venue hewn out of the basement of the diabolical Famous Cock next to Highbury and Islington station. Gastroboy refused to enter the Buffalo bar for a long time in the mistaken belief that it was connected to the footie-focused chunder factory upstairs. It turns out the Buffalo Bar is actually a brilliant little venue, bringing up-and-coming Indy rock and roll bands to trilby sporting Islington trendies. Not a gastro so doesn't really belong on this blog, but worth a mention because it was where Gastroboy concluded his birthday. An interesting layout, great bands playing late, decent bottled beer at a reasonable price (for a club venue) and a rock-oriented disco until 2 all contributed to a brilliant night out for a well lubricated Gastroboy and a comprehensive schedule of UDIs on Sunday morning.