Test Driving The Golden Tooth, where the Papi team deliver an instant-hit pub

At the back of The Golden Tooth, you'll find the dining room with the light from the skylight making the disco ball a feature even during the daytime.

What can you tell us about The Golden Tooth?

This is the new pub from the team behind Papi, chef Matthew Scott and wine merchant Charlie Carr. Just a few months ago, they announced that Papi in London Fields was closing, only to reveal shortly after that they were to open The Golden Tooth. Both a proper pub and a restaurant, the pair have created a brand new menu for the pub and they're describing the whole venture as "ever so slightly more refined and grown up".

Where is it?

It's taken over what was The Leconfield on Green Lanes, about halfway between Newington Green and Clissold Park. The pub has had a light redesign inside, mainly brightening the place up, but with lots of new touches throughout. The biggest change, if you've been to the pub before, is that the back room is now the restaurant area, with the rest left as a pub. This works very well in practice - it's a big pub and there's still a lot of space for drinking. 

As for getting there, the nearest station is Canonbury overground, and it's about a 10-minute walk from there. 

The outside has had a light refurb (mainly signage) and those seats will be very handy as the weather heats up. 

Where should we meet for a drink first?

The best nearby options are probably Yield or Cadet on Newington Green and they're both great places for a glass of wine. 

But the obvious answer is, of course, here. In the Papi boys' hands, this is probably now the best pub in the immediate area. Even with the restaurant in place, there's plenty of space for drinking and we liked the benches attached to the pub on the outside (see the photo above), which are a great spot for perching on a decent day. 

The front of the pub is still that - a proper pub. 

So what kind of food can we expect?

They have said that it's their take on what people expect as gastropub food. In practice, it's somewhere between really good gastropub food and the kind of dishes they were serving up at Papi. So there are snacks and small plates, but they're definitely on the generous side of small. You'll also find larger dishes like a truly excellent pie (we'll get to that in a bit). Seasonality remains a big part of the menu (we noticed that some dishes were already being revised after last week's soft launch), so the menu should change a fair bit. However, they did say that some key favourites and possible mainstays were already becoming obvious (see the cheese tart below for one of those, we'd say). 

Ultimately, the best way to have a meal here (between two) is about two or three small plates followed up by one of the bigger dishes on offer. It may be worth asking them to hold back the larger dish until later in the meal, as they were still working out timings when we visited (it was only day two, after all). 

So with all that in mind, here's what we had:

Cheese and custard tart with leeks (£15) - this will undoubtedly be the must-have dish on the menu. This just-set savoury custard tart is one of the best things we've eaten this year. Expect the accompaniments to change with the seasons, but do not leave without ordering this. 

Ragu on toast (£14) - on their soft launch menu, this was a mussel toast with guancale, so expect this to be a dish that also adapts with the season. As for the moment, this is a near-perfect ragu.

Brined tomatoes and Dorstone cheese (£13) - incredibly fresh tomatoes, a great springtime/summer starter.

Red prawn and chicken stargazy pie for two (£52) - Another absolute showstopper, filled to the brim with chicken (they're roasting dozens to fill these pies), and perfect for sharing as it's so rich. The prawn/chicken combo also works surprisingly well.

Chips with an incredibly deeply flavoured wild garlic mayo (£8). Try not to get that anywhere near your clothes, of course. 

Soft cheese ice cream with a Gariguette strawberry (£9)

Sunflower seed and Rhubarb frangipane (£10)

Other dishes we've seen and are recommended are an Iberico pork chop, and they're also promising large sharing steaks (an ex-dairy sirloin, for example). And while we didn't have it, the "curds and whey" gnudi dish also sounded fantastic.

Outside of the main menu, there is a bar snacks list and when we visited, that had extra treats like fried chicken with ranch and chilli sauce (£14), oysters and a Cantabrian anchovy toast (£14). There will, of course, also be a Sunday roast, so look out for that. 

And what about the drink?

As with Papi, the wine is a big deal here, thanks to Charlie Carr (who is also behind Wingnut Wines wine bar and shop). There's a particularly strong focus on English wines on the list, more so than almost any other London pub we've been in. They're promising that at least 50% of the menu will always focus on English wines (we'd say it was well over that when we visited), making this a great venue to see just how great the homegrown wine scene in the UK have become over the past few years.

White wines start at £29 for a 500ml carafe, but there was a bottle of Spanish tempranillo on there for £29 at the time of our visit. If you want to really try the proper English wines, you're looking at the £50-£60 mark, and that gets you some great examples. We ended up on the high-end of the light red menu with a Sophie Evans 2023 pinot noir from Kent (£80), which paired extremely well with the entire meal. 

Of course, it is a pub, so you could always go for a pint (all around the £6-7 mark). Looking around, they seemed to be pouring an extremely good pint of Guinness, with other pints from 40Ft, Five Points and Deya - plus they also have their own brand lager. Finally, there's a small cocktail list (£11-£14), including a pickle martini, paloma, margarita and more. 

A Disco Pils from 40Ft and a DNA col-fondo style sparkling wine from Under the Bonnet wines.

Overall thoughts

It's admittedly been a while since our visit to Papi, but it's clear that the team has moved leaps and bounds ahead of that already impressive start. Everything we tried on the menu at The Golden Tooth was exceptionally good, from the perfectly set cheese tart to the incredibly rich pie. And the good food is further supported by the thoughtfully revamped setting, where the split of restaurant and proper pub really works, and a great wine list. 

If you're an Islington/Stoke Newington local, this is an absolute must - you should book a table immediately. But the food is so good here that it's also well worth crossing town for. Come next year's Gastropub awards, we can see The Golden Tooth absolutely getting a nod.