The Tavern is a yummy arrival for the mummies of Tufnell Park

So when friends began talking excitedly about the swanky new Tufnell Park Tavern, I strapped my babe in her Bugaboo and set forth along the area’s leafy avenues.

The Tavern is a beacon bang in the middle of Tufnell Park’s culinary desert. Formerly a pub with a dodgy reputation, the large premises have been given a modish makeover by Handmade Pubs, owners of the Lord Stanley in Camden, The Fox in Shoreditch and The Lansdowne in Primrose Hill. In this seemingly less fertile location they have created a multi-purpose venue with a big airy bar, smart restaurant area and a decked beer garden. There is also a pleasant deli room, which is sunny and quiet with newspapers and stacked plates of homemade Chelsea buns and muffins wrapped in parchment. You can buy good coffee to drink in or out, pick up a cone of homemade ice cream for £1.50 or order from the imaginative breakfast menu (cannellini beans on toast with chipolatas, grilled rosemary bread with olive oil and Camden Mews honey).  

Twice I’ve chosen from the good daily-changing lunch menu, where £7 will get you a tangy duck salad, crisp with pickled radish and chicory, or a melting tart of artisan cheese and spinach, fresh from the oven, with a side of well-dressed leaves. When I visited last weekend I didn’t catch it at its best. Holiday season hits hard around here and the restaurant was half closed off. I also arrived just after 3pm so couldn’t order from the interesting main menu, which is peppered with trendy ingredients such as pomegranate molasses, pearl couscous and rose petal jam to give the gastro staples a modern twist.

Fortunately, tired parents with poor timekeeping can order pizza all day. Well-fired with light, crisp bases, the toppings pack a clever punch. My Turkish pizza came with crumbly feta, spiced lamb, pine nuts and coriander. Squeezed over with fresh lemon it was exotic and zingy, like good street food. A classic margarita was marred only slightly by the addition of too much olive oil and a tangy chorizo gave a third pizza the kick it needed.

They cost under a tenner and can be taken away if you can’t get a babysitter — though it goes without saying that children are most welcome.
All is not yet perfect. Melting Moments biscuits looked good in an olde worlde glass jar, but could sink a battleship, while lavender shortbread was so full of seeds it was like eating a bar of soap. But it is aspirational food for which there is an immense as yet unsatisfied appetite in N7. Get the cakes right and the mums will follow.

The Tavern
162 Tufnell Park Road, N7 0EE