Six years later and the Pig and Butcher is still a reflex when my main criteria is to enjoy the company. We used to come here more often at the beginning, when we first moved to London. Then we migrated a tad farther north, other restaurants started popping up all around, and we had even (!) more (!) children — (just one more). It remains the place to meet favourite friends. To find refuge on the weekend, outnumbered by too many kids as is our lot, and nonetheless enjoy a meal. Here the food, the light, the service all conspire to make one feel very much at home.
It is true that, occasionally, a starter has disappointed, but the dense, housemade sourdough with beef drippings never will. And mains are, invariably, excellent. Choose simpler options to start such as rillettes and save your appetite for steak or fish — which, notwithstanding the pub’s name, is always perfectly cooked.
The place heaves for Sunday lunch, and it’s worth attempting. It’s boisterous and happy and always delicious.
Endnote
For a post-exhibition family Sunday lunch (remember to call ahead), a local evening with friends (or just a friend), for a beer at the bar, for simply dessert when dinner nearby offered not a trace of a sticky-date-pudding to sound off the birthday celebration. It is a restaurant to feel entirely comfortable, to fuel conversation — lively or intimate — for friends to catch up.
The Pig and Butcher
80 Liverpool Rd, Islington, London N1 0QD
Tel: 020 7226 8304
thepigandbutcher.co.uk
Nettle and Quince 
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