Here's our guide to north London's best family-friendly pubs, to help you plan some family time.
Tufnell Park Tavern, Tufnell Park
This airy, modern local is open for coffee and cakes in the morning. The main menu is Mediterranean, including pizza, and on Saturdays the pub hosts a locally-sourced food market. Kids can let off steam in the big beer garden, or in Tufnell Park Playing Fields, just around the corner.
Tufnell Park Tavern, 162 Tufnell Park Road, N7 0EE
The Londesborough, Stoke Newington
The Londesborough's delicious Sunday lunches, served by child-friendly staff, are particularly popular with young Stoke Newington families. Tucked away on a back-street corner, this pub is kitted out with squashy leather sofas inside, and a safe, secluded garden outside.
The Londesborough, 36 Barbauld Road, N16 0SS
The Spoke, Holloway
Right on Holloway Road, opposite Whittington Park's playground and natural play areas, The Spoke is a daytime café/night time pub, serving up familiar favourites for youngsters including burgers, eggs, macaroni cheese and French toast, with fresh juices.
The wide expanse of wipe-clean wooden floors is forgiving to missed mouthfuls, or muddy pushchairs and boots.
The Spoke, 710 Holloway Road, N19 3NH
Clissold Arms, Finchley
Winner of a best family pub award for the past two years, the Clissold is so child-attuned you can hold hassle-free children's parties (birthday, bat or bar mitzvah) here.
The packed kids' calendar includes music, French and Mandarin lessons, plus fairytale-themed upcycling craft workshops.
To make life easier for the adults, there's a baby-changing room, as well as a regular parent and toddler group.
Clissold Arms, 115 Fortis Green, N2 9HR
The Island, Kensal Rise
This back-street family pub is surrounded by a terrace on two sides. Children are welcome until 8pm, with high chairs, crayons, colouring sheets and a massive outdoor chalk board on hand to keep them happy.
The management says it’s 'happy to cater to any family needs', something that parents are always happy to hear.
The Island, 123 College Road, NW10 5HA
The Narrowboat, Islington
Kids will be enthralled by the pub's towpath location, next to Regent's Canal. Feed ducks and swans from the towpath, peek at life aboard a narrowboat, or watch sailors and paddlers from Islington Boat Club.
There's no separate children's menu but smaller portions of, for example, sausage and mash, fish or chicken can be served. Pub staff pride themselves on the place's family feel, which includes comics pasted on the walls.
The Narrowboat, 119 St Peter's Street, N1 8PZ
Duke of York, Barnet
This sprawling former coaching inn is very cosy, with old wooden furniture, floorboards, prints and photos, plus rugs and roaring fire.
It caters for outdoor fun with swings and tractor in the large lawned garden, and its own downloadable circular walk.
The 'children with smaller appetites' menu features ham and chips, or pasta and tomato sauce.
Duke of York, EN5 4SG
The Parcel Yard, King's Cross Station
Formerly the parcel office for the station, these historic premises now oversee a more modern dispatch point: Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4. Families are warmly welcomed, and there are baby-changing facilities and board games.
The children's menu (salad, burgers, chips, pizza) is printed on a fold-your-own-fortune-teller sheet that also offers colouring-in, quizzes and games.
The Parcel Yard, King's Cross Station, N1C 4AH
The Spaniards Inn, Hampstead
Right in the middle of the rambling space of Hampstead Heath, this 500 year old wood-panelled watering hole is one of London's oldest pubs with links to Dickens, Keats, Dick Turpin and Dracula, and a rumoured resident ghost.
On the food front, fish finger sandwiches and quinoa burgers come highly recommended. Outdoors there's a great pub garden and indoors it's awash with myriad nooks and crannies where you can hunker down and play board games.
The Spaniards Inn, Spaniards Road, NW3 7JJ
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Have you got a favourite family-friendly pub in North London? Let us know in the comments below.
