With long embedded memories of North London’s loftiest village being home to chains like Cafe Rouge, Caffe Nero and Pain Quotidien, it’s refreshing to see that in the last few years it’s been reinventing itself – just a little, anyway.
A key moment in 2025? Acclaimed North Road gastropub the Red Lion & Sun’s takeover of landmark Highgate High Street boozer The Angel.
But in quieter fashion, a small independent pub nearby has this year become a foodie stronghold. And how different it is from its former incarnation as a chain bakery.
The Crown is now owned by Northern Pubs Company, who also run the Haverstock in Belsize Park, the Old White Bear in Hampstead and the Prince Albert in Primrose Hill. And it’s a nice 360-degree turn for an 1861 building that long housed – you guessed it – The Rose & Crown, until it shut in 2012.
Donate just £2 to Kentishtowner
My partner lives a stroll away via the Parkland Walk, so we’ve lounged in The Crown’s sunken back garden on a sweltering lunchtime or two over the summer, while its single main room lets the afternoon sun in at the front, with cosily crepuscular corners at the back.
Now it’s deepest winter, a fire roars in the grate: the handful of seats overlooking it are surely the most desired in the house. And the interior has been restored carefully, while a new-for-autumn upstairs dining room has a more contemporary vibe, with open kitchen, walk-ins counter, a central chalkboard menu and stylish tables and chairs.
The cooking is led by young head chef, Charley Samuelson. Hampstead-born, she did time under Skye Gyngell at Spring and more recently was head chef at The Dusty Knuckle in Dalston. Her approach blends the lightest fine-dining touches with the comfort food many people want from their local.
The Crown taps into that vogueish post-Devonshire fashion for real boozer at ground level with top scran upstairs. We sat in the proper pub section by the fire, as on a Tuesday evening the dining room is closed (it’s only open Wednesday to Sunday.)
Donate just £2 to Kentishtowner
While the full menu offers the likes of cured mackerel with pickled apple, cod with mussels and poussin with brown butter celeriac, the bar offering reads more simply, an apparently unexciting rendition of pub classics, from fish and chips to sausages and lentils, pies and a burger.
And yet each of the four dishes we shared was prepared flawlessly – with careful detail that elevated every plate.
A winter salad was generous with crimson radicchio, but also sliced pear and buttery bleu d’Avergne. Scattered with toasted walnuts, its juxtaposition of flavours and textures proved a thrill to demolish. We also shared a signature steak sarnie, thick pink slices of juicy bavette paired with fiery horseradish and watercress in addictive Dusty Knuckle focaccia: in short, one of the tastiest sandwiches I’ve eaten all year (and at £17 it should be, although it comes with chips).
Next up was the £24 pie du jour (see main pic, above): topped with burnished pastry, rich with creamy chicken and leek, it was piping hot, the heady scent of tarragon emanating as its roof was pricked by a fork, steam escaping out.
My only note? I would have preferred an artfully constructed whole pie, rather than just a pastry top. And yet the accompanying silken mash, pooled with butter, and robust greens, was effortlessly seductive.
With the cooking this strong, it was soon pudding time: a cloud of light-as-air chocolate mousse came adorned with seasonal delights – sherry and caramelised sticky prune – with creme fraiche chucking its familiar tang into the mix.
After all this, washed down with a bottle of house red, we rolled down the hill past the famous cemetery for nightcaps at two very different pubs, the Duke Of St Albans on Swain’s Lane and the mighty Southampton Arms. But as for The Crown itself? It’s royally good, the hearty fare well worth the steep climb – to gain an appropriate level of appetite, of course.
Take the Overground to Upper Holloway, or tube to Archway or Highgate. Starters from £8, mains from £15, The Crown, 86 Highgate High St, London N6 5HX, follow @crownhighgate
Kentishtowner ate as a guest of The Crown.
