Acclaimed North London Residency Four Legs Plans to Open Very Own Pub in September

Acclaimed pub residency Four Legs will take on a boozer of its own this September — if a £75,000 crowdfund goes to plan. Ed McIlory, formerly of Bao Fitzrovia, and Jamie Allan, formerly of Broadway Market butcher-kitchen Hill & Szrok and seminal Paris neo-bistro Le Chateaubriand, intend to leave the Compton Arms in Islington and take over the Auld Triangle at 52 St. Thomas’s Road in Finsbury Park. They will turn it into The Plimsoll — a nod to both its former name, The Plimsoll Arms, and the four sneaker-clad feet of the residency’s logo.

Over its two years or so in N1, Four Legs has become known for its smashed Dexter cheeseburger, affectlessly plated dishes on elaborately floral crockery, and, most recently, an ability to parlay a mildly narking influencer interaction into online notoriety. Now, the two chefs say, it is asking the community local to the pub that saw it through numerous lockdowns to support it in owning one of its own: first help to survive, then help to grow.

In a promotional video filmed by Samuel Ashton, behind the lockdown series Series Abnormal, Allan says the pub is an “old-school boozer [but] it just needs a kitchen.” The £75,000 is designed to allow the pair to install that kitchen, open independently, and pay staff “what they should be paid for working in the industry, because it’s really hard work.” In practice, that will translate into a minimum salary set at London Living Wage, currently £10.85/hour. Interestingly, the kitchen will run Monday — Friday, leaving weekend service to drinks only — though given the duo’s penchant for collaborating with similarly minded outfits like Will Lewis’ Willy’s Pies and Spasia Dinkovski’s Mystic Börek, there might be some surprises in store.

More soon on the upcoming pub.