The Drapers Arms
Once a year the pub clears the calendar for Glandstonebury, its own festival of offal cookery, with other London chefs cooking in the kitchen.
Why go
The menu is rewritten every day. Estrella Damm's gastropub programme, which ranks this pub 67 in the country, describes the kitchen as a perfect mix of rustic classics and modern techniques, a shining example of gastropub cuisine
, and notes the daily-changing board1. Michelin holds a Bib Gourmand here, which is the award that says the cooking is serious and the bill is not.
Nick Gibson owns it and writes the wine list, which runs by glass, carafe and bottle from a house pour up to a magnum of Sassicaia. Catherine Hanly, choosing this as her first meal out after the first lockdown for Hot Dinners, led with the man behind the bar rather than the kitchen: Order up a cracking martini from owner Nick Gibson and you're away. It really was a truly excellent martini
2. When her first choice of Assyrtiko was off, Gibson steered her to a Goisot Bourgogne she liked better.
The building is early Victorian, on a residential street in Barnsbury with the Upper Street crowd a few minutes and a world away. Bar downstairs, restaurant upstairs, garden at the back.
Be clear about the record, though. The only star rating anyone has published on this pub is a three out of five from Time Out in 2013, and its verdict was that the drinking side was faultless and "the food was a little more hit-and-miss". Nobody independent has eaten here on the record since July 2020.
Order this / avoid
- Order: whatever is on today's board, since that is the kitchen's whole method. The steak and red wine pie under its suet crust. A martini from the landlord. Something by the carafe off his list. Offal, if Glandstonebury is running.
- Avoid: trying to book the garden, which is kept for walk-ins while the pub and the upstairs restaurant take reservations. Turning up on an assumed schedule, because nobody publishes current hours. Expecting Barnsbury wine to be cheap.
What locals & experts say
- Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs, ranking it 67 on their national list:
The Drapers Arms in London is well known among consumers and those in the trade as one of the finest pubs for food in the capital.
The same page records the Michelin Bib Gourmand and Glandstonebury, the pub's annual offal celebration with visiting London chefs.1 - Catherine Hanly, Hot Dinners Test Drive, 7 July 2020: on the wine,
Owner Nick Gibson is responsible for the wine list here. There's a decent selection by the wine, carafe and bottle.
On the pie:even if 50p wasn't donated to Action Against Hunger from each pie purchase we'd have loved this wonderful suet crust pie.
2 - Time Out London, 25 September 2013 (3 out of 5, Recommended): the pub
understands its clientele (well-to-do Islingtonians glad to be away from the Upper Street fray) and delivers what they've come to expect from an above-snuff local: namely, pricey wines, varied beers, neutral decor and thoughtfully seasonal cooking.
3 - The critical line, from that same review:
the food was a little more hit-and-miss... lamb's leg steak arrived in an ocean of butter, while the kitchen's idea to serve caesar salad with quail worked about as well as one might have feared.
The reviewer put it down to a sloppy night. It is thirteen years old and it is the only star rating on record.3
Good to know
- Where: 44 Barnsbury Street, N1 1ER, a side street in Barnsbury. Highbury & Islington is the nearest tube.
- Timing: not established. The pub does not publish hours on its own site and the only pattern on record is Time Out's from 2013, which had it open noon to 11pm daily with lunch to 3pm and dinner from 6pm. Check before you go.
- Booking: through OpenTable and the pub's own page. The bar and the upstairs restaurant take reservations; the rear garden is walk-in.
- Rooms: bar, upstairs restaurant, garden, private dining room. The kitchen does takeaway.
- Drink: Gibson's wine list, sold by glass, carafe and bottle, with a Star Wine List entry. Cask beer on the handpulls, which in 2013 meant Harveys Sussex Best, Sambrook's Wandle and Truman's Runner.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 4, Islington, inspected 12 February 2026, FHRSID 570631.5
- Names: at least eight pubs called the Drapers Arms trade in England, two others in London, at Ealing and on Bancroft Road in E1. None is connected to this one, and their hygiene records belong to them.
Verdict
should-visit — Worth the detour off Upper Street, and the reason to trust it is the offal festival. A pub that throws an annual celebration of offal cookery with other London chefs, which is what Glandstonebury is, has a point of view about food rather than a marketing position on it. The rest lines up behind that. The menu is rewritten daily. Michelin holds a Bib Gourmand here, which is the distinction that matters most on this list because it means the cooking is good and the bill is not stupid. The Estrella Damm gastropub programme ranks it 67 in the country and calls it one of the finest pubs for food in the capital. And Nick Gibson, who owns it, writes the wine list himself and pours it by the carafe from a house wine up to a magnum of Sassicaia. Catherine Hanly picked this as her first meal out after lockdown and led her write-up with his martini. This is also London's own format done properly, in the borough where the gastropub grew up, which the city-signature test rewards. It sits below must-visit for reasons of evidence rather than doubt: the last independent assessment was July 2020, the only star rating anyone has published is a three out of five from 2013 that found the kitchen inconsistent, rank 67 is the longlist rather than the Top 50, and the Bib cannot be dated to an edition.