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VERSION:2.1
N:The Apple Tree
FN:The Apple Tree
TEL;WORK;VOICE:020 7837 2365
ADR;WORK:;;45 Mount Pleasant Street;WC1X 0AE
URL:
NOTE:The elided borough of Finsbury constitutes a very peculiar area of London. Stretching from Gray's Inn Road in the west to City Road in the east, it seems to have no centre or focus, and sprawls in a red-brick mess across several hills. It isn't really near anything, despite being in Zone 1, and has no tube stops or slabs of distinctive architecture to define it. So far, its lack of a discernable identity has saved it from the avaricious clutches of the property developers, who elsewhere have been busy stripping away the character and charm of the city in order to provide apartments for the graceless and bubble-headed New Young Rich. Finsbury won't stay this way for long, Exmouth Market having already been gentrified, so it's worth taking the time to aimlessly ramble around while much of its old character still remains. The area has a somewhat bleak, tumbledown appeal with its inward-looking squares of Peabody housing, half-hearted attempts at light industry, the incongruous groups of well-heeled lawyers clattering along its shoddy streets. Outside the environs of Exmouth Market, one can walk a long way without finding a pub. The Apple Tree stands at the western edge of this area, right by the ham-fisted architecture of Mount Pleasant Post Office, once the world's largest sorting office and still a brutal monster of a building. It provides a good stopping point on the way into Finsbury, at least on weekdays (it's closed at weekends). A solid, unpretentious sort of place, decorated in the usual dark wood with grimy yellowing walls, it is split neatly into two areas by the bar. The affable clientele are mostly Post Office employees, and due to the nature of their shifts the pub is usually fairly busy whatever the time of day. It would be a fairly unremarkable sort of place - ignoring its stolid resistance to any sort of redesign - apart from its astonishing opening hours, which are from 11am-1am Monday-Friday. No bouncers, no locked door policy, no DJ attempting to drown out the last sighs of conversation. Just turn up and drink after hours. I can only admire such a straightforward attitude. Welcome to Finsbury.
NOTE:I visited this pub on Thursday 5th February, as I had some time to kill, and it looked nice from the outside. It serves a wide range of beers and wines, ordered an extra cold draught beer which was not extra cold at all. The glass of wine I ordered was corked. When I pointed this out to the staff, I received the worst attitude I have received in any pub in London.<br/><br/>
The menu is pretty expensive for a pub, the food when it arrived did not look like gastropub food, but like it had just emerged from a microwave, scorching hot outside, cold in the middle.<br/><br/>
I believe it has just changed hands, so it might be teething problems, but such a disappointment - definitely one to avoid when there are so many other great pubs in the area, like the Packenham Arms and The Wilmington.

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