Easter at The Albion
I lived in Angel for a year (almost a year ago) and it was only a few months before I moved out of my flat that I discovered The Albion. As my family live abroad I went there for Easter dinner last year with some friends who also were not able to get a good home roast, we were all extremely impressed. I then went back a few months later and had an amazing leg of lamb, so when I was reading the Observer Food Awards and saw that it won the Best Sunday Lunch category I decided I had to go back for another Easter feast.
The last week has been very busy for me and had involved lots of eating out so I had not being hungry in a while and was almost dreading the thought of having to have another large meal, eating Chorizo Hash Browns at The Breakfast Club that morning probably didn’t help! But I marched down there for my 2.30pm booking. Now I would like to state that I did not make the booking but one way or another a mistake was made and the table was actually booked for 2pm so we were thirty minutes late. But being the best Sunday lunch pub in the world (well UK at least) they just smiled and asked us to wait a couple of minutes while a table was prepared for us.
G&T’s ordered and the third and final attendee seated it was time to scan the menu. While I was tempted to repeat my previous great meals guest R was eyeing the Pork so myself and D went for the beef. The meal was served very quickly especially considering the Beef had ‘30 mins wait’ on the menu. Both meats were perfectly cooked, the Beef was served with Yorkshire pudding, roast potato, carrots and cabbage in lots of butter, oh and of course gravy and horseradish sauce (not as hot as I would have liked)
One thing I love about roasts at the Albion is that you get to carve the meat yourself, while no expert at carving it does add that extra bit of excitment to the meal. Even though I had eaten a large breakfast I managed to eat everything and possibly more than my fair share of the cabbage. R’s belly of pork, that to be honest looked a lot more like a loin, was full of flavour and melted in your mouth.
Liek all good meals I didn’t want it to end, and the best way to delay this is order pudding! We decided to share three deserts and another set of plates were liked clean (not literally, tempting though it was).
The Albion is not cheap, but neither is it over priced, it’s a large step up from your average pub roast and worked out about £35 each including a nice bottle of Cahors, G&T’s and dessert. Anytime I have out of town friends in London on a Sunday I will be dragging them to the Albion for a roast, and you should do the same.
