Head down Islington side streets and you'll find The Tamil Crown
What can you tell us about The Tamil Crown?
It's the second Islington pub from the people behind The Tamil Prince, which became an instant hit after opening in nearby Barnsbury last year. The same team have taken over another pub, this time The Charles Lamb at Angel, and after a light refit have reopened, with their Indian menu as the big draw.
Where is it?
Many Islington locals will be familiar with The Charles Lamb, which has been an Islington institution for decades. While it's somewhat sad to see that close, keeping it as a pub and giving it a new lease of life as The Tamil Crown is a big positive. If you've not been there before, you'll find it in the backstreets of Angel, about a five-minute walk from Angel tube station.
The main restaurant at The Tamil Crown. If you remember the layout of The Charles Lamb, you'll see that the room has been opened up a fair bit.
Where should we sit?
One thing that's instantly noticeable is that, unlike The Prince before it, The Tamil Crown really feels like both a pub and a restaurant. There's a clear delineation between the pub side and the restaurant at the back, which wasn't as apparent at their previous opening. This is, of course, a good thing as we're very much in favour of keeping an element of what's called a "wet pub" (i.e. a clear part that concentrates on selling drinks as opposed to food).
The restaurant is towards the back, seating about 25-30 we think, and the place has all been opened up quite a bit (the back room at the pub used to be separate, but now the wall and door separating the two spaces has been removed, so it merges into the main pub. The pub looks great - but there are a couple of criticisms.
One is that they simply need to turn the lights up a bit. The lighting has moved past warm and inviting and into near-dark territory. The second is that while it's nice to see into the kitchen, it appears that the designer of the pub wasn't let into the kitchen, as it does look a little spartan in there. These are small, easily-adjustable nitpicks though.
(Edit - we've since been told by Hot Dinners reader Petra that there's also an upstairs dining room (and private room) that we weren't aware of. So there's a lot more space up there)
So what kind of food can we expect here?
The menu features Indian and Tamil dishes created by the man behind both pubs, Prince Durairaj (the former Roti King chef). If you've been to The Tamil Prince, the menu at the second restaurant will be very familiar to you, with quite a few dishes recurring.
Returning dishes include the beef masala uttapam, the robata lamb chops and the okra fries. We tried all of these at The Tamil Prince and you can see more about them here. Given what we had at their new restaurant, we'll assume they're as great as the original and come highly recommended.
As for The Tamil Crown, here's what we had there:
Onion bhaji (£7) - yes, we've had this before but it's so good that it's hard to resist.
Chicken lollipop (£10). These aren't actually on the main menu, but The Tamil Crown does have a separate bar menu that it's worth asking for a look at too. There you'll also find samosas as well as smaller snacks like shoestring masala fries (£2.50 but note those are crisps, not actual fries).
Coconut prawn moilee (£16) - a light and fragrant curry, packed with prawns.
Aubergine curry (£12.50) - sticky and sweet, a pretty perfect veggie curry.
Anything else to highlight?
There's a sharing dish of a large crab masala, but that wasn't on when we visited. We haven't seen the weekend menu yet, but apparently, a Sunday lunch is planned, with choices of a lamb shank, masala roast beef, masala roast chicken or a vegetarian roast so that definitely should be worth a look. They've also got a private dining room somewhere, but we didn't see where.
Overall thoughts
If you've been to The Tamil Prince, this will be very familiar to you. A fair few dishes have crossed over into the new restaurant so while it won't seem as groundbreaking as the original, the food on offer is just as good and it feels a little more like a proper pub. If you haven't been to the predecessor, this version is a little closer to a tube station, so it's well worth popping across town to check it out.
More about The Tamil Crown
Where is it? 16 Ella St, London N1 8DE
How to book: Book online
Find out more: Visit their website or follow them on Instagram @the_tamil_crown.
Hot Dinners ate as guests of The Tamil Crown. Prices are correct at the time of writing.
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