- 2022 Highest Climber
The site was established in 2008 and has since undergone a significant renovation, which took almost two years to complete.
However, since the reopening, the Bull & Last now has six stunning bedrooms for guests to stay in and relax having dined and quenched their thirst on only the finest food and drink.
Prior to its refurbishment, the pub was a mainstay on the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs list, and on its reopening last year it was voted straight back into the mix.
According to The Guardian, the final stop on the Highgate Road for passengers heading north out of London in the 18th century was an inn called the Bull. Legend has it that as you approached the driver would yell, “The Bull – and last”.
Now, hundreds of years – nearly two of which were spent conducting a wholesale revamp – later, “the Bull & Last offers new motives not to disappear up north,” The Guardian’s Grace Dent said after her visit in August 2020.
But rather than charging in like the proverbial in a China shop, the thoughtful redesign, which saw service halted in October 2018, has created what is a bright but traditional pub with a half dozen new boutique bedrooms.
Its menu offers twists on pub classics, British cuisine with a continental twist and comfort food like its buttermilk chicken sandwich and its legendary Scotch eggs.
So extensive and varied is the food offer at the Bull & Last that its beautifully presented cookbook has been recently published featuring 70 recipes from the last 12 years alongside a history of the pub’s loyal customers, four legged friends, local residents and a history of Hampstead Heath and the surrounding area.
