The King’s

Not the best looking pub, cheapish nasty tasting wine, blue fairy lights and an amazing sounding live band!

Does serve a decent pint of real ale and looks and feels like a proper pub (right down to the dartboard!). The music is slightly unusualsounded like some awesome speed metal when I walked in.
I wasn’t blown away or anything but in Islington it is good to see a bar like this. There is a lot of modern toss nearby! I’m pretty sure that someone told me that this is also know as the ‘lower King’s Head’ becausewell there is another one and it iser. higher (?).

Gaaah. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really feeling this place. I’m totally cool with the shabby chic look, the cheap drinks, the worn velvet, the rickety seating, the discarded theater seats against the wall, and the generally mismatched and aged look of the place. In fact, I usually like that kind of atmosphere. And for about an hour, it was a totally acceptable spot to grab drinks with friends. Not exciting in any way, but a place to sit and purchase alcohol. Sometimes that’s all you need in a pub.
However, at a certain point, the ‘open mic’ started, and that’s when things started going downhill fast. Fast like a bunny slope skier who suddenly finds herself on a black diamond mogul hill. Fast like a rollerblader with no brakes on Lombard Street in San Francisco. Fast like a Jamaican bobsled team on ice for the first time ever on a track greased with rendered duck fat pulled downhill by a galloping gazelle moving faster than the speed of light. Seriously. Fast.
Open mics are a nice idea in theory, but generally the quality of performance is tolerable at best, and legitimately painful at worst. This is why people aren’t actually PAYING to see these performances. If I had paid or if the performances had any remotely redeeming qualities, I’d be cool with the volume being turned up loud enough to shatter my eardrums. However, when you’re trying to sit and chat with your friends, the sonic boom of the regrettably untalented electric guitar player resounding in your head really couldn’t be more annoying. And I totally understand that some people might be enjoying the show, and that’s their prerogative. But the volume shouldn’t be so loud that you can’t hear a single thing said by the person next to you and makes your ears ring to the extent that you actually have to leave the bar in irritation and bleeding from the eardrums.
Okay, no bleeding. That’s a shameful bit of exaggeration. But really, I was cool with you before King’s Head, and now we are so not friends anymore.

Now not a lot of people know this, but there are two Kings Head pubs in Angel; One is a delightful place on Upper Street with a theatre in the back that opens until late 7 days a week and often has a swing band playing tunes and helping along the revelry until the early hours. The other is a throwback to the typical old man pub of the seventies with vile food, miserable customers and an all-​encompassing sense of despair filling the air. This is a review of the latter establishment, a venue so depressing I felt I might have to shovel the inedible food I was given into my mouth in order to die, thereby giving myself a welcome exit from what can only be described as a hell hole.
So why am I so vehemently opposed to anyone else ever making the same mistake I did and setting foot in the Kings Head? Lets start with the food– an £8 roast which consisted of 3 slices of cheap, ready sliced, processed, cold chicken a la Bernard Matthews, 2 spoonfuls of frozen vegetables which had been cooked to the point where they no longer resembled anything of nutritional value, 4 roast potatoes which were still frozen in the middle, and a generous helping of lumpy gravy. A meal fit for a king this was not– I wouldn’t even feed this to my dog, if I had a dog, which I don’t, but that’s not the point. I complained about the poor quality of the food and was told in no uncertain terms what I could do about it– in words I wouldn’t use in front of my mother, and I have a pretty filthy mouth in front of her, so I won’t repeat them.
If this wasn’t enough, the drinks prices are at the high end of Islington standards, the clientele are the low end, the music is reminiscent of a club singers repertoire and the toilets had clearly not been cleaned since before they turned those vegetables on to start cooking back in the Nineties. If you have a mortal enemy, recommend this place to them.

This is it folks. Friends keep asking me to explain what an «American Dive Bar» is, and *this* is it, or at least as close as you’ll come here in the UK. And no, water is not involved in any way shape or form.
Sure a bit has been lost in translation, but this cheap, well-​worn neighbourhood watering hole simultaneously involves darts, karaōke, seedy clientele, and a menu of beer, beer, or gin & tonic. The attitude is quite old-​timey as well and rather than conform to the newly revamped Islington crowd, the Kings Head clearly proclaims: «Join us as we are, or piss off.» Gotta respect that, right?
But get this…
On weekdays and nights, turns out that the Kings Head puts on its more upscale hat for the regulars with free wi-​fi, delicious pub food, sky sports, and an apparent fruit machine? The back patio looks like it would be a fantastic summertime haunt if you can pass up the passionate pub quizzers, making this local crotchety old pub one of my newest faves.
I’ll take character over conformity any day.

Now, i’m not really sure if it’s under the same ownership. And from the previous review I doubt it. I don’t recall hamburgers. I recall the most amazing Thai food that I (as a 20yr old recent uni-​grad) had ever had.
I had only had Thai food a handful of times back home in Los Angeles, but this place truly transformed me. I became an instant fan. It used to be that the pub owners little thai wife made all the food. It was amazing!
I worked across the street at the Old Queen’s Head and frequented this spot because it was close and the Thai food was so good. I remember the appetizer of mixed random Thai treats was my favorite. I used to enjoy that and a pint in their beer garden out back.
I was also sitting in that front window (watching the tv you can somewhat make out in the window) on ⁹⁄₁₁. I saw it all happen from there. I’ll never forget this place.
If they still have Thai food, I’ll definitely be back for a visit.

An old fashioned pub, the Kings Head on Essex Road has some really stiff old punters who like their local joint that hasn’t lost all character compared to the bars in Islington with minimalist décor and loud music. So you might get a few looks on a weeknight for intruding on a local hangout, but on the weekends its pretty lively and varied.
The food is really simple and well priced. Its decent pub food at decent prices, like burgers for a fiver. There are benches outside on the street as well, which get some late evening light in the spring. Great to check out on the weekend if you just want a chilled out pub to have a drink, or watch sports otherwise.