The Princess: Shoreditch, December 23rd, 2009

Pub grub in the east end? That’s about as ‘now’ as London eating gets these days. With the constant demand for a return to national and local cuisines, gastropubs are as essential to the capital’s restaurant scene as chic French brasseries or affordable pizza joints.

I’d heard a little about The Princess before, and I had hoped that it would be some super-affordable, stunningly original restaurant that used to be a pub. I don’t know why I thought that, but there was something in the way it had been semi-raved about and it’s location in hipsville that promised much.

Of course, my expectations were trounced sharpish. It’s a very nice little pub (and it is a pub) just off Old Street with a dining room upstairs. The weather was rotten, and for a while it felt as if we hadn’t even entered the restaurant, as a propped-open outside door blew smoky, freezing air up the stairwell and over our plates. Annoying, but this was dealt with in due course by the staff.

The food was just about what you expect these days from a pub restaurant that wants to be taken seriously: pate, game, plenty of meat and trendy trimmings and all done passably. There was foie gras terrine to start (blame the other half for this; I really did not fancy yet more of the stuff) which was alright. They really went for it with the sides for this though. Not as good as L’Etranger some days before, but doable.

I flouted two food gripes in one fell swoop with my starter. Spinach and lentils in the same dish… I must have been tired, depressed or strangely adventurous. Either that or I’d eat through anything to get to a piece of woodpigeon atop a nest of two vile foods. And so I did. And surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. Woodpigeon at a restaurant should never be bad – if it were I would start seething uncontrollably; it’s a bloody amazing bird – and this was very decent. Good enough to make the accompaniments seem bearable..? Well I won’t re-draft my dislikes yet, but this may be the first step on the road to acceptance.

I decided to go for some more guinea fowl for the main course, which came with more foie gras. This was slightly forgivable though, since it was stuffed inside some thighs on the side of a breast/wing cut. The usual sauce and veg accompaniments did the dish no harm, and it came out slightly tart, well-cooked and enjoyable.

We also tried something similar to the daube of beef I’d sampled at La Trompette, only an English version with gravy, mash and mustard. It was nice in places, but otherwise fairly dry and crumbly – not quite how I like my beef. It wasn’t great; merely passable.

Desserts were a fairly solid cheesecake and a pretty tasty apple crumble: two dishes that are hard to get wrong, but tough to make excellent. These were certainly closer to the good side of things.

As underwhelmed as I might seem (I have had some top meals lately), it’s far from disinterest. Something I realised after the meal, and indeed since, is that whilst a dinner like this is somewhat standard these days, this in itself is a good thing. Food is getting better all the time, and whilst The Princess of Shoreditch isn’t at the forefront of any revolutions, it’s serving up good fare without too much expense or too many frills. Good on them.

The Princess of Shoreditch