please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Complete and utter Sh*t hole.
|
This used to be a great pub, with interesting locals and a great atmosphere (the reason i moved to the area!). but recently this has been replaced with a sub standard over priced restaurant, filled with boring city workers trying to clutch onto the trendy and cool, but as always they are too late! not impressed with the new management; they have turned a long term successful locals pub into 18month yuppie wonder! This pub will no longer be making any time out short lists!!
|
Horrible, terrible, risible place full of men in fashionable hats shouting at one another while using there laptops. The food is slightly above average, the wine list uninspired and overpriced and the service patchy to say the least. You do stand a chance of getting served in the right order, but only if the barmen's friends aren't in, as they always, always, always get served first. On the other hand, it serves as a filter to remove such people from other pubs in the area...
|
Previously candidate for best gastro pub and local in London - now suddenly souless and horrid - Ill concieved move towards being a restaurant a disaster. So very very sad. All the downsides are now in sharp relief. Please, please, please bring back the bar as a bar - rather than an enormous service point for an average restaurant. Dont know what youve got til its gone...
|
At last the Lord Stanley has done something to get rid of those truly dreadful people at the bar who made the place look like some kind of 'local' pub instead of a dinery.
We should soon be able to get easy service from the bar area now that there is so much space. I reckon waiting time could get down to less than 10 minutes once the new staff are fully trained. Even better...we could have waitered service at our tables and negate the need to actually shift ourselves out of our trough benches to get watered!
I strongly support the new management in everything they are trying to do. It's about time nice people with manners (OK some of us are abit whinny and squawky!) had somewhere of their own to go to. Despite it being trendy Camden, it really is King's Cross and a tad rough so it's a pleasure to have a safe haven for proper people.
I am also appalled at the previous comment that states the diners are coke heads...I certainly only drink coke when I'm driving.
One suggestion for improvement though...if they put tables alongside the bar area then the last dregs of 'regulars' would not be able to stand at the bar. There would be more covers and they would then have to provide watered service only! They might as well as they already have the little silver trays for giving the bill in a tip-inducing way
I rate this pub as a 9/10!!!
|
Bring The Lord Stanley Back as a Pub!!! That's the name odf the 40 strong group I have just joined.
Reading the previous comments is interesting because it tells a true story. However, the pub of previous comments has been eroded by new management and staff - for example you can't chat to the bar staff perched on a bar stool any more as the bar stool Gestapo have locked them all in the dungeon (alright Cellar OK)!!!
The Bar staff with one exception have all either resigned, been fired or are working in sister establishments.
The ambient local feel has gone too. You have to respect business decisions designed to increase turnover, however it will be interesting to see how the Stanley survives as a restaurant. The middle class coke heads still have the money to splash on the over-priced plain food but what will happen if, as expected, the economy takes a downturn in 2008?
My rating for this pub is zero based on the fact that I no longer consider it to be a pub. If I had reviewed it a year ago I would have given it an eight.
Regards,
Lord Stanley
|
The Lord Stanley is not really a pub. It is a (not very impressive) restaurant that happens to sell beer. There are many better places to eat and better places to drink, nearby.
|
maybe you shouldnt be dragging your heavily pregnant girlfriend around pubs, or using her as some ultimate demand for blissful service - just a thought
|
The lord stanley doesn't f**k around, bad comments below are just people getting the worst of a north london crowd and i would bet money it was on weekend night. With no doormen it is nigh on impossible to control the clientele you receive as a popular pub, there is always a shift in the mood of a place......anyway, i think the food is pricey but i've never been disappointed with it. they have really cheap but excellent nibles and do a great job of making olives, and frsh baked breads etc seem way more apppealoing tyhan a lot of restaurants. To anyone with a bad word, dry your eyes, i swear you misery-guts arent happy unless you're miserable, the lord stanleyengages with its regulars, thats why it has them and keeps them, havent been there in months but am remmbered and looked after. Have to wait longer than i'd like, but guess, what it's OK, it doesnt kill me------time isnt money guys!!!! Nice one Ben and the guys!
|
Went in there with my then heavily pregnant girlfriend, who asked for a well done steak only to be told the chef likes to cook them rare. This place really rates itself, but in reality is full of middle class students who like the sound of thier own voice and are little more than grinning idiots.
I've always had suspicions that venues post comments to bump thier rating and it would come as no surprise that this place. I do go here a bit not because I like it but because it's not the Unicorn.
A dreary souless, dull dull pub.
|
In a nutshell... Service particularly from one particular bar maid is guaranteed to be appalling everytime - ubrupt and constantly sniping at staff and customers, the prospect of sticking around for more than one drink is not enticing. Being a giving person I have gone back to this place many times in the hope that she may have overcome her 'troubles' evidently she never will. On the plus side food is fairly ok and the decor not too bad.
anonymous - 25 Apr 2007 09:58 |
Had a genuinely awful experience here myself, but for different reasons. Nice place to go for a drink, inoffensive service. My girlfriend and myself had been looking forward to going there for a meal for ages before we got round to it. Had the sauasages and mash and was served up the most unfeasibly over peppered monstrosity I've ever faced. Truly awful. Managed to force down about a quarter of it and spent the rest of the night feeling like death. It genuinely was that bad. Like I say, nice place to go for a drink but avoid the food like the plague
anonymous - 17 Feb 2007 09:55 |
Oops - that was a request for chips with my fish...not the other way round. And YES, they did say that. WTF!!
I've just sussed, also, that the toadying reviews below mine must have been posted by the boozer itself.
This gaff is a genuinely disturbing part of the planet. I'd be happier in Croydon. With dysentery.
How long ya gonna take to scrub this off the menu, guys?
Best Sunday roast my ar**!
|
Truly dreadful pit - full of public school hyenas on cheap cocaine, braying hysterically.
My outlandish request for fish with my chips was dismissed with an outright "NO. We only do chips with the lamb."
Food utterly banal and couched in gastro-speak pretentiousness. Atmosphere ZERO and my previous - equally accurate review - removed by owners who must know the writing is actually on the wall...
Go for the grotesques if you will but this place is hideous.
|
Found this little gem by accident after getting lost coming from Kentish town. Great traditional pub even if they are now Gastro as so many places are in N London.
Amazed the guys can knock out so much great food from the tiny kitchen behind the bar.
Still has its typical locals perched on stools. At least the staff were talking to them and actually looked like they were enjoying themselves at work.
Bit smokey but apart from that great little boozer.
Look forward to revisiting after smoking ban and taking advantage of garden
|
Best roast beef sunday lunch I have ever had!
Go for the well above average gastropub menu (which they seem to cook on 4 bunsen burners at the end of the bar), the walled beer garden with over sized tables and chairs, good range of beers, wines and lagers and the friendly local (who looks like the experimental love child of Asterix and Obelix) who shakes your hand on arrival and collects your empties.
Avoid if you like your pubs 5 mins from a tube station, want the chairs to match the tables and want to pay less than £2.50 for a pint of "house" lager.
|
I had a bit of time on my hands so i thought i'd google my local to see what came up. Glad to see that the Stanley has a good reception. It's a fantastic pub inside with a great atmosphere, but no one's mentioned the garden! It's my favourite place to chill in the summer. The food's amazing and the house wine doesn't taste like vinegar; a great change from standard pub fare. The bar staff are always on hand and helpful and they've now extended opening hours to 12:00 on both Friday and Saturday nights. With summer coming what more could you want?
|
consistent greatness alll round, but where's vince gone??!!!
|
Used to be my local before i moved up the road to Holloway. A fantastic pub to which i intend to regularly make pilgrimages for the food and atmosphere. Also disagree with the 'grumpy staff' comment earlier... rating should definitely be higher than 6.8!
|
I once lost a blim
outside. I often return,
but rarely go in.
|
I do like this pub for the interior, the beer and the cat but the staff are so miserable, it looks as though they'd rather be doing anything at all rather than serve you. The food is good but there's one chef in particular who seems to think he's Gordon Ramsay...
anonymous - 13 May 2005 13:34 |
Lovely pub - even more so compared to what is nearby (i.e. Mansfield, Unicorn and Leighton). Reasonably priced beer which is of a pretty high standard. All pubs should have ginger cat like the Stanley's...!
|
A top notch pub. The food is rustic English and Meditteranean and has improved vastly although on a busy night you should be prepared to wait as all food is cooked to order. They bake their own bread daily (foccaccia, ciabatta and all sorts of seed breads) and the chef makes his own pasta as well. Full of crazy local characters and oozing rugged charm. The closest you can get to a "real" pub in London.
Philip - 26 Oct 2004 12:56 |
A really lovely pub with great food that has improved massively. A lovely local which feels like one - rare in London
kate - 14 Sep 2004 20:30 |
The stanley was sold in December,2003: to the owners of the lansdowne.
I visited the place for my birthday in August, with friends and family. We had a great time.
I missed the old style and the spice driven style of food.
Winras - 10 Sep 2004 18:20 |
Great Olives and nice if slightly pricey food but beware of the head barmaid (possibly owner???) she's very abrupt and in my opinion rude. Also if you're a cider drinker be prepared to be disappointed - they often don't have any. And avoid the house wine - it's like vinegar!
sarah - 4 Jul 2003 11:14 |
comfy, friendly; a top place to eat and drink. try to catch one of the barbecues. but watch out the bar staff can get a little frisky.
i live miles away and it's still my local!
derek - 15 May 2003 16:25 |
Great food, friendly atmosphere, local art displayed, can get a little smokey though, mix of locals and visitors
James - 29 Nov 2002 12:00 |
skip nav