The front bar is still reassuringly pubby, even if its ceiling is hung heavy with fresh hops from a local farm, the taps dripping with craft beer and artisan cider. This close to London (St Albans being an almost too self-consciously family-friendly satellite just north of the capital) any remains of the pub in ‘gastro pub’ are to be cherished. The bar snacks remain trad too, but not excessively so, which is reassuring for anyone who remembers sweaty-cheese-rolls-under-plastic-cloche pub catering: there are Parmesan biscuits, the inevitable scotch egg (smoked duck with Guinness brown sauce here) and a burger (ex-dairy beef, Tunworth cheese). And there are several options for the card-carrying sophisticate, like octopus gildas or a little boudin-noir action.
But the serious gourmandising and the wine list reside out back in the Georgian eating-room-meets-Agatha Christie parlour: Dylans proper.
Here, mismatched furniture, vintage bits and bobs and warm, chunky-knit ambiance are topped off with shiso leaves of boho flair. I hail a passing oyster, wanton scarlet with Bloody Mary sauce (aperitif and canapé rolled into one) with which to peruse the 2- or 3-course lunch menu (Wed to Fri, £25/£29 respectively). There is a choice of two dishes at each turn, one for carnivores and one for ruminants, from a regularly changing, seasonal menu.
You might start with a soup, wild garlic with hazelnut and buttermilk say or a zippy gazpacho. Or the more solid delights of ragu with truffled potatoes and Comté, as we do: beefy, loamy rubble with a perfectly poached egg oozing from the centre. Tasty, if rather in need of a more insistent carb dancing partner – a tangle of buttered noodles or toasted sourdough to take it to full gentlemen’s club savoury territory. The main event, a whole poussin with creamed corn and harissa butter, is superb, though: medieval-trencher feasting brought up to date with homey Americana, Tunisian pep and a pile of pickled cucumber to cut the bird-in-butter-bath richness.
In the evenings, the menu stretches out, adding a handful of options: fish, meaty sharing cuts etc and gilding the lily with beef-fat chips, clotted-cream mash and other hyphenated tasties. Sunday has the distinction of genuinely interesting alternatives to the usual range of roast sirloins and pork bellies: gurnard (seemingly the fish of the moment as I discovered in Cornwall recently) with lobster gravy, for example, or the startlingly trans-national carb fest that is Lyonnaise and Gorgonzola tarte fine with Yorkshire pudding. Brilliant. Madness. Second helping please.
There’s a proper pastry chef rolling and piping somewhere in the kitchen. I know because I’ve seen him on the instaweb and because the puds are a darn sight nicer than a typical gastro-pub afterthought. We chose a refreshingly modest lime sorbet anointed with olive-oil vodka but there are more wicked options like cream-packed choux buns with mocha sauce, proper sticky toffee pudding and rum babas.
The nicely furnished wine list has a good range of sparkling by the glass – from Valdobbiadene to Champagne – and includes an actually interesting alcohol-free wine: Antilope, a Malvasia from Beaujolais producers Des Grottes. The rest of the c 40-bottle list is French-heavy, including some impressive burgundy (Chavy-Chouet Meursault) and bordeaux (Grand-Puy-Lacoste from Pauillac) and less rarefied options – Mas de Daumas Gassac’s Moulin de Gassac Merlot is the house red, a fresh, quaffable, bird- and budget-friendly choice. There are a handful of other Europeans worth checking out, too – we found a Koehler-Ruprecht’s Kallstadter Riesling (2022) as well as Senorio de Librares’ (new-wave and female-run) Rioja Blanco (2023), which at £36 a bottle is reassuringly good value for just north o’ London.
And who is the eponymous Dylan? Their old chocolate lab whose picture still presides front of house. A dog, I suspect, who ate well.
Dylans at the King’s Arms 7 George St, St Albans AL3 4ER, UK: tel +44 01727 530 332
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