Last Updated on April 12, 2025
Canalside dining
4.0 out of 5.0 starsWe went along to try out the Sunday lunch at the Lighterman, a smart modern gastropub in a prime position on Granary Square overlooking the canal. It’s open for all-day casual dining and drinking and on Sundays also offers a choice of roast dinners, including a different sharing roast each week (£65 for two, including vegetables and trimmings).
The Lighterman is a large airy place spread out over two floors. We were seated in the upper dining room with views of the canal and an opportunity for people watching, including the gleeful kids playing in the Granary Square water features. Upstairs has a wraparound terrace, which will be great in the summer, while the downstairs terrace was already heaving in the spring sun.
My companion kicked off with the Jasmine Margarita from the Lighterman’s cocktail menu, a blend of Tapatio Blanco tequila, chamomile, jasmine and lime. This was heady stuff with a real kick to it. She could both taste and feel the tequila and the chamomile was a strong presence too. She went so far as to call it “wildly alcoholic”.
Meanwhile, I was sipping away at my far more innocent seeming Paloma Spritz, combining Blanco tequila, Cocchi Americano, grapefruit sherbet and grapefruit soda. This probably had just as much tequila in it but was neutralised by the long,g cool addition of the grapefruit soda.
The sun and the ambience drew us into ordering a second round of drinks. My friend felt she needed a coupe de champagne – the only thing she thought could calm the swirling drunkenness caused by the Margarita. The Joseph Perrier Cuvée Royale Brut Champagne lifted her spirits and did strangely make her feel less drunk after the hit of tequila.
I picked another of the Lighterman’s signature cocktails: the Plum Sour, a mix of Chivas 12YO, plum sake, honey, and marmalade. Served in a half-pint dimpled beer tankard and with a cool foamy head, this had a strong flavour of the honey rather hiding the promised marmalade and plum, with a rich source of whisky hiding at the bottom. Cool and refreshing.
I’ve made the mistake in the past of having a starter before a Sunday dinner so we went straight into roast dinner mode, hoping to have room for puddings.
I chose the 32-day dry-aged roast sirloin. This was the best roast beef I’ve had in quite some time, cooked to pink perfection, beefy meat that was tender but full-flavoured.
A good combination of vegetables accompanies the roasts at the Lighterman, including texturally perfect roast potatoes that are waxy rather than floury inside, well seasoned and with a rosemary-dusted crusty outer casing. I ate all of them (a rare event).
The spring cabbage added lightness to the plate. We both enjoyed the mashed parsnips, salty and savoury and not too sweet, as well as the roasted heritage carrots.
My friend enjoyed but didn’t rave about her Beetroot and Mushroom Wellington to the same degree I did about my beef. She felt it could have been made a little more luxurious and a little less dry.
Just as I did, she loved all the vegetables and trimmings. She was particularly taken with the thick vegetable gravy (made from vegetable stock, white wine and mushrooms) – it gave her whole plate a real lift and bore no relation to watery gruel that she claims has been the bane of many a vegetarian Sunday dinner experience. Both of us gratefully accepted the offer of a second jug of gravy.
I made extraordinary inroads into my plate – it is not often that I get anywhere near finishing a roast dinner. I simply could not help myself this time. My friend made even greater strides, and all that was left when her plate was taken away was one small nub of Yorkshire pudding.
Though we didn’t really need to be reminded of the truism, our waitress brought the existence of the second pudding stomach when presenting us with the dessert menu. It turned out that my friend’s extra capacity that day was for cheese and so she ordered the British cheeseboard. This was a satisfying and generous selection of mature cheddar, a British brie, and Stilton served with apple chutney and lots of biscuits.
I did deploy my second stomach and chose the Cox’s Apple Tarte Tatin served with creme fraiche and lots of caramel sauce. A very pleasing dessert, huge slice, apples well caramelised and cooked to near melting point, with a slightly savoury edge to the pastry. Very good.
We visited the Lighterman on an unseasonably sunny Mothering Sunday to find the place mobbed with families celebrating their mothers and lots of well-behaved children as well as groups of friends out for a convivial long lunch. The staff coped admirably, offering helpful and friendly service throughout. A recommended spot for a very enjoyable Sunday roast.
3 Granary Square, London N1C 4BH
Telephone: 020 3846 3400
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