The Baring
Rob Tecwyn cooked at Dabbous, Moro and Morito, and it is the Moro end of that CV you taste first, in a quail shish under pul biber chilli oil and garlic yogurt.
Why go
Tecwyn and Adam Symonds reopened this corner pub in July 2022, taking on a site that traded as The Poet, and kept it a pub: bar seating, cask Five Points Pale on the hand pump, dogs welcome. CAMRA files the building as locally listed, a fine 19th Century pub front (1840s), with good overall proportion and design
in yellow stock brick (CAMRA). The kitchen runs a short daily card off named farms, Rhug Estate venison with smoked beetroot and a parsnip latke among them, and the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 placed it 17th nationally, one of 13 London pubs on that list (Hot Dinners). Pul biber is the tell for the Moro years: coarse Turkish chilli flakes, more fruit and salt than heat, which is why the quail reads warm rather than hot.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the quail shish. The Good Food Guide calls it
the undisputed showstopper,
with garlicky yoghurt and pul biber chilli oil.2 On Sundays, the roast, which Harden's survey callssuperb Sunday lunch.
- Avoid: planning a Sunday roast in August. The kitchen swaps to a summer barbecue menu on Sundays that month.
What locals & experts say
- The Good Food Guide: rated Good, for
properly fresh ingredients
andstraight-to-the-point cooking,
with service that has awarm, light, friendly touch
and a wine list that isgutsy, mainly European.
2 - Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 (17th): announced 27 January 2026.1
- Harden's (2026 survey):
seasonal, fresh food cooked with real imagination and flair,
food rated 4 out of 5, £88 a head.3 - Local rec: a chef sent Jeff here. REAL.
Good to know
- Timing: closed Monday. Tuesday to Friday the bar runs noon to 11pm with food noon to 2.30pm and 6pm to 9.30pm. Saturday food runs to 3.30pm at lunch. Sunday is noon to 6pm, food to 4pm, so it is an early finish.
- Booking: through SevenRooms, and worth it for Sunday.
- Price: £88 a head in the 2026 Harden's survey.
- Dietary: no gluten-free, celiac or vegan statement is published, so ask when you book.
- Location: 55 Baring Street, off New North Road. CAMRA files the address as Hoxton, the food press files it as Islington, and it is the same corner either way.
Craft signals (the kitchen is the axis, and it moves with the season)
This is a gastropub, so the cadence to read is the menu. Rob Tecwyn's cooking changes with the season, which is why the Good Food Guide's showstopper and Harden's four for food are the right kind of evidence and a fixed signature dish is not. The drink side is deliberately small: CAMRA records one cask beer from Five Points with keg from Anspach & Hobday, Five Points and Harbour, a short local list that supports the plate rather than competing with it. Seasonal is the honest label, and 17th in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 is the outside verdict on the plate.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "Chef rec" REAL.
- Rec via: a chef, unnamed on his list. REAL.
Verdict
should-visit — The Baring is worth the detour. Seventeenth in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs 2026 is a national placement, and the cooking behind it is specific: a chef out of Dabbous, Moro and Morito running a short daily menu in a locally listed 1840s corner pub, with cask on the bar. It falls short of a trek because London has several pubs at this level and the room is a neighborhood room.