The Albion Gastropub, Islington

Just a few weeks ago, in early April, the Albion gastropub reopened after an extensive renovation. The Daily Candy, whose restaurant alerts I normally ignore, associated chef Richard Turner’s creds with Tapas Brindisa, a restaurant I like very much. Throw in the Albion’s location around the corner from my flat (journey time door-to-door: 5 minutes’ walk) and of course I checked it out.

Five out of the seven times I’ve eaten at the Albion since it reopened, I was in heaven. The service was a little unorganized (e.g., every time I called to book a table, I was told the restaurant was full, but then I’d show up as a walk-in and end up being seated almost immediately), but always friendly. So despite service slowness, the pros far outweighed the cons: The pub dining room and bar are cozy and welcoming; the large outdoor garden is a perfect place for large groups of friends to meet and hang out; and the prices are reasonable (10-15 GBP per main course and most bottles of wine for under 30 GBP). Best of all, though the food was simple, it was made with care.

Among my favorites is the potted duck appetizer (photo above). I joked with my photographer friend Julie Kubal (who took all the photos in this post) that there’s no way to make potted duck a visually-appealing dish, but Julie proved me wrong.

Potted duck, in case you were wondering, is duck cooked in a lot of its own fat – confit’ed – until it’s soft enough to be a spread. I love schmearing the potted duck onto a crispy, hot slice of toasted baguette. In moving to the UK, I may have irretrievably lost bagels and cream cheese, but I won potted duck. It’s not a bad trade.

For my main course, I’m a big fan of the spring vegetable pot pie and the Gloucester Old Spot (photo above), which is a poetic-sounding way of saying I like to eat pork belly. Lately, though (as in: the last two times I was there), the slab of Gloucester Old Spot that arrives on my plate has been hard-as-a-rock on top and mushy on the bottom. It used to come lightly browned and crisped on top and juicy and meaty on the bottom. So are things sliding down hill, or have I just hit two bad nights by accident?

And worst of all is the downhill trend in the quality of the small details like the chips. Just a month ago, the triple-fried chips were excellent – golden and ultra crunchy. To the extent the world is divided into crust lovers and middle lovers, I fall into the former category, so the crispier the better.

Alas, on my last two visits, the chips were soggy – definitely not triple fried or even double fried – and mealy in a way that I thought only frozen pre-bagged chips could be.Service during my last two visits, while never particularly good at the beginning, was also on a slide.

On one Saturday evening, the server brought out a wrong dish and kept insisting that it was our fault the dish was incorrect. It was an unpleasant conversation and the gist appeared to be that because the server had already brought out the dish, we should just accept it and eat it.

On another recent occasion, our table of six waited a half hour for a server to take our order, despite its being a quiet (empty) Wednesday evening.

Overall, I’ll give the Albion another try or two to see if things shape up, but I don’t understand how a place could start out so well and be already headed downhill.

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