Canalside bars: the perfect place for a lock-in.
Especially when it’s somewhere like The Lighterman, which wraps up drinking, dining and views in one neat package.
It’s set in a striking 1960s-style modernist building, with three storeys swaddled in floor-to-ceiling windows and slate-coloured brick. It’s right by Granary Square, meaning that after a busy afternoon browsing the stalls at Canopy Market, stuffing your face at KERB, or pushing children out the way so you can play in the fountains, you can hole up at The Lighterman for a well-earned drink and a bite to eat.
While the inside of said beautiful building is well worth a nosey – all retro furnishings and wooden floors and ceilings that make you feel like you’re in a giant sauna – The Lighterman’s real selling-points are the huge terraces outside, overlooking the canal and conveniently within earshot of the live jazz that sometimes emanates from the floating bookshop.
On the menu: everything you’d want from a gastropub, ranging from flatbreads stuffed with spicy sausage and Cornish Yarg, to dry-aged steaks; fish & chips; wild mushroom tarts and fallow venison with blackberries. Basically, the theme is ‘delicious’, and that extends to Saturday brunch (kedgeree, truffled eggs and salt beef hash) and Sunday roasts too.
Being a gastropub, the drinks menu isn’t about to disappoint either. There’s craft brews – featuring two casks of London suds – and a decent wine list covering all price points, including a list of British vineyards. You’ll also find a dozen house cocktails (though they can put together pretty much anything for you), with a couple of seasonal specials thrown in for good measure.
Take your colleagues, take your friends, take your dad.
Just don’t expect him to leave a lighter man…*
NOTE: The Lighterman is open daily. You can find out more, and book a table, HERE.
*sorry
The Lighterman | 3 Granary Square, King’s Cross, London, N1C 4BH
Had one pint and want to turn it into a crawl? It happens, so continue on to other best pubs in Kings Cross