The Red Lion, The Angel

2 pubs.

The Red Lion is lost in Mayfair's maze of backstreets near Shepard's Market. It's not a gastropub, but it's a good solid fancy a pint style boozer. Not really worth posting, except that Gastroboy went there for a pre-departmental Christmas thing drink last night and is now very hung over. The only things of note that he can remember is that there was board announcing the day's selection of sausages.

The Angel (Highgate) on the other hand is a gastropub. Gastroboy is used to Islington prices, but even he was taken aback when asked to pay £8 for a pint of Kuppers and a white wine spritzer. But then this might have been the first time he's ever ordered a spritzer, so maybe that's what they cost.

The team used to go to the Angel quite a bit but gradually became irritated by the limited and unchanging menu, the slightly flat Star, and the beautiful young people behind the bar who are to few in number to cope with the pub's popularity and probably more interested in talking to the beautiful young people on the other side of the bar than actually serving. And so it was that Gastroboy's first visit to the Angel in quite a while was a pleasant surprise.

The menu's changed a bit (not much but slightly) and offered Gastroboy, amongst other things, Beef Wellington for £13.50. This turned out to be a giant Cornish pasty filled with a quite delicious sirloin steak served somewhere between blue and raw. An even cleverer trick given that they never asked Gastoboy how he would like it cooked. Now this could have just been because the chef was too busy being beautiful and talking to his friends to notice that he was serving practically raw food, but Gastroboy is going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that either the Angel takes a strong and fundamentally correct view on how long to cook red meat for or that the beautiful people also possess telepathic abilities.

Beer-wise, the pub's got better. At least 3 euro-wiessers, fruli, leffe, some other silly things too. At first GB thought that Kuppers was the only non-specialty lager, but the bar staff grudgingly admitted to still serving stella and Carlsberg. Wine list's pretty good too, currently featuring seasonal mulled wine. Wasabi peas and pistachios in brick-heavy tumblers complete the set.

And it is still the best looking pub in Highgate. A beautiful effort.