So, have you ventured inside yet? Admittedly, it’s hard to reconcile the rustic interior of Kentish Town Road’s newest pub, the Old Farmhouse, with its previous incarnation as the bohemian Lady Hamilton. And yet, aesthetics aside, what I didn’t expect was for its pasta to be so impressive and – if you visit on a midweek lunchtime – such fantastic value.
But first, some backstory. This is a pub that’s had more lives than most. Originally known as the Star & Garter, in 1885 it was rebuilt into its present form with that red brick exterior. Rechristened the Old Farm House (note the plaque), it survived for decades before a short stint in the 1990s as Dolly Fossetts, then O’Reilly’s in the noughties, and Camden’s Daughter and Lady Hamilton in the ‘teens. Phew. It’s seen them all come and go.
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No wonder it exudes such a necessary sense of calm in 2025, with those gently distressed walls, and a green-tiled open kitchen. The feel is elegant rural pub – as its restored moniker suggests – underlined by a new food menu created by two northern Italian chefs, Shila and Elia, under their guise Piena e Felice, a concept they created during lockdown. “The phrase literally means “full and happy”, they say. “Making fresh pasta is an art that is learned from an early age.”
And this, it seems, is true. Burgers and salads aside, you can dive into, say, a la carte options like green pappardelle pasta with truffle cream and mixed mushrooms, or spaghetti in garlic, olive oil and chilli, topped with crispy breadcrumbs and lemon zest. But it was the reasonable £15 lunch that drew me in. It comprises two choices of pasta (meaty or plant-based), a burger or salad, with either a soft or alcoholic drink, which includes Camden Hell’s or a 175ml house wine.
The ragu was a no-brainer, surely a gauge of the chef’s skills. A perfect pile of egg-free handmade strozzapreti (which means “priest stranglers”, the name having various origin stories) possessed a slight, rather addictive chew, the beefy sauce – cooked for six-hours, the chef told me – glisteningly rich with deeply meaty umami flavour. For what is essentially a tenner – or maybe even £8 or £9 taking into account the value of drink included – this is outstanding value.
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