The Old Dairy

My housemate and I are big fans of The Dairy its not the best pub in London but its one of my personal favourites in North London anyway.
It get's a bit busy though and we will often go the Nobel or Stapleton for a quiet pint.

The food is pretty consistent in my mind, not cheap though !
But the portions are big, the desserts could do with a bit more imagination.

Good selection of beer and ales, that are pretty reasonably priced for London, if you want you cheap drinks you can always try the Weatherspoons down the road !

Being a gastro-pub I was expecting the drinks to be a little pricey, but £3.80 for a pint of Guinness is taking the proverbial. Won't be back.

Don’t get out as much as I used to these days, however I’m glad that I decided follow up the recommendation of some friends and went to The Old Dairy. Decorated to feel welcoming without feeling faux, good friendly atmosphere, I was pleased with the food I ordered (and there was plenty of stuff on the menu which sounded tempting) and the ales I had were just the thing (can't remember the names but not because I had too many). Hope to get back there in the not too distant future.

Love it! Good food, good vibe, great service! Can't fault the Old Dairy only to say that due to the obvious popularity of the pub it has always been busy when we've visited (mr & mrs with little person) and as they're not a fast food chain there's an average wait for food. It's not our local but we're always happy to take visting family over to the OD to enjoy a very relaxed and lovely Sunday roast!

There is only one word to describe the Old Dairy: Shambles…

This is a perfect example of a pub being great when a quarter full but even the slightest hint of being busy sees the place descend into a cataclysmic farce of a boozer. Its got great ales and a range of lagers, good wines and the food is very good…all very typical London not-trying-too-hard-to-be-cool boozer. All the sort of stuff somebody in the owners hq can sort out but for goodness sake the organization of the place is just downright embarrassing.

I’ve lived locally to the OD for four years and have been a frequent visitor, and apart from a brief upturn last year the staff have always treated the customer as though its an honour to be served. For example, I’ve stood at the bar for 5 minutes while another couple was served and 5(!!!) staff milled around, which included 4 looking at one piece of paper. And forget about complaining, the most you can expect from is a shrug and a look that says “I couldn’t care less, there’s enough suckers out there that will be come back!”

If you’ve got the time to spare go, have a decent pint in nice surroundings but only on a quiet Tuesday or Wednesday night. If you’re reading this OD management your rivals are catching up, stop taking the p’ss out of your clientele.

A few weeks ago my girlfriend and I had a pretty fab Sunday lunch in The Old Dairy. Good food, good service and good enough for a return visit, which we duly made yesterday. This time, things were different. The (unbooked) table we were given was on the ant trail between the restaurant and the bar, so there was constant, clumsy traffic past us. For most of the meal we had at least three toddlers being followed round and round the table by a succession of doting parents, as if we were a toddler airport and they were circling to land.

Ah yes, the food. My roast beef, ordered medium, was obviously off the ragged end of whatever industrial-sized meat lump the kitchen was currently hacking away at. Fatty and tasteless, most of it was left on the plate. The gravy was Oliver Twist-thin and the vegetables – including the potatoes – were watery and not roasted (not very much, anyway). The single cabbage leaf managed to give the whole thing a nasty, school-dinner aftertaste. A complaint to the manager brought the offer of taking the main off the bill, which is fine, but a table that complains is often then over- or under-attended by the staff. We got the latter. We suspect they had been given a rollicking and now morale was heading south. Coffee had to be re-ordered, processing the bill was tortuous and the manager wouldn’t meet my gaze on the way out.

Too big and too busy – good-bye for, ooh, let’s say, one year.

I went with some friends on a Sunday to watch the footie, as my beloved Gunners were playing. They have just upgraded to Hdtv which was noticable as the picture before was rubbish !

Six of us all had roasts which were awesome, lovely beef with proper gravy and nice yorkies ! We did wait a while though, but the place was packed ! We were told that there was quite a wait for food, by the guy who served but who cares its Sunday !.

Loved the ales on tap, there was Spitfire which is one of my favs and a Morrisey fox whixh i was not that keen on. Bit pricey for drinks but its what you would expect really no different from many of the other pubs in the area.

As for the staff they were all really friendly if not slightly rushed to say the least. My only real complaint was that they ran out of Apple Crumble !

Some Friends and I came here for New Years Eve…the place was absolutely rammed. If we were in the bar area I doubt we would have stayed – it would have been ages before we had got served. Fortunately we had booked a table in the restaurant.

I can honestly say I had the best New Years Eve I have ever had – the food was superb, the service was outstanding, and even though it was £50 a head it was well worth it!

We were greeted with champagne by a charming girl who showed us to our table and then served by an equally lovely young lady all night. What a treat. I felt sorry for the staff – they were rushed off their feet (the meal was five courses) – but all of them kept smiling all night.

I absolutely love this place – i'd recommend it to anyone.

I have lived in Stroud Green for 4 years now, and I've watched the Dairy go from strength to strength. I think this is one of the most beautiful pubs in London and wholeheartedly disagree with earlier comments. I have always received amazing service! We recently hired out an area on a weekend night and everyone was so accommodating – we got real value for money and the management bent over backwards to accommodate us, even though they would have been just as busy without us. The staff aren't bad to look at either! Keep up the good work!

We went to the Old Dairy for Sunday Lunch yesterday. Upon being seated we were told there would be a short delay of about 5-10 mins as the kitchen was snowed under. An hour later we were still awaiting our starters. People all over the restaurant were complaining vocally and with good reason. Main courses took a full 40 mins from the starters being cleared away. Their solution… some free Olives! How generous.
One thing that has annoyed me with several Gastro Pubs recently is the excuse that they are too busy.. If they cannot handle it, then surely they need to reduce their covers? If they want the cash, provide the service!
To be fair, when the food arrived it was very good. Nothing flash, but well prepared, fresh ingredients and generous portions. Roast Beef was a genuine highlight. Thick slices, Tender, Medium rare, and very well presented. Even then though, the side of Chips we ordered arrived when we had nearly finished everything else. Surely 90 mins is enought time to cook some Chips?!?!
To top it all off they overcharged me on the bill by about 6 pound. When I pointed this out the look I got making me out to be tight just summed the place up. I begrudge paying for crap.. I certainly dont overpay for it.
Overall, nice looking venue, decent food. Unfortunately, the entire experience was ruined by incompetence. Dont waste your money, there is a Weatherspoons down the street that would do a far better job.

I don't normally write reviews in fact this i my first, but I have just returned from my first visit to the old dairy.
There were four in my group and we had booked a table for 1400, we arrived about five minutes late and were shown to our table, which was very nice. The bar itself is lovely and the tables are well spaced out and not to crowded.
We ordered drinks and relaxed…we waited, waited and then waited some more, finally after twenty five minutes we were told that the kitchen was over run with orders so to try to give them a chance to catch up it would be another five minutes until our orders were taken, would we like some bread and olives while we waited.
We said yes to both the bread arrived but they had run out of olives so we were given rice crackers instead.
After another half hour the waiter came for our order, we asked how long we would have to wait for our main if we ordered now and we were told well you only waited 10 minutes to order, when i pointed out that it had actually been 25 minutes the waiter said oh really. We decided not to have a starter because of the time we had already waited.
We were told our main would only take 10-15 minutes to be with us, after 15 minutes a waitress appeared apologized and asked if we wanted more bread or if she could do anything to make things better, we were very hungry and a bit grumpy by now but asked for some more drinks, she apologized again and then went to bring our drinks.
So after arriving at 1405 we finally got our main course at 1535!!! Three of us had ordered lamb and one had ordered beef.
The lamb was over cooked and tasteless it came with one piece of very nice broccoli half a piece of carrot half a piece of parsnip some over seasoned jus and the worst roast potatoes I have ever had. The beef was a bit better but the veg and jus was the same.
As we ate the waiter came over and asked if the food had been worth the wait, we had to say no, but he didn't ask why or what we thought was wrong with it.
We didn't order desserts and asked for the bill.
To be fair they didn't charge us for any of our drinks, and the waitress did apologize again explaining that they had been just to busy to cope.
But we had expected to go out and have a nice three course sunday lunch, we weren't in a rush but to have to wait an hour just to have your order taken is not really on.
There are lots of lovely places to eat in this area and unless the old dairy sorts it self out quick sharp it's going to lose a lot of trade…the waitress said that she hoped we would give them a second chance but I don't think we will, I wonder how many other people will.