Acting up at The Engineer

It's ironic that the most fashionable gastropub in Primrose Hill is called The Engineer. After all, this is an area known for its artists, writers and actors, not bridge-builders and industrial designers.

Indeed, The Engineer is only a stone's throw from Chalcot Square, home to Joan Bakewell, and just around the corner from Sir Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett.

At Oxford and Cambridge, where they all went to university, those studying engineering were looked down upon by intellectuals, a state of affairs that led CP Snow to make his famous complaint about Britain's 'two cultures'. It's the equivalent of a pub in Redmond, Washington - home of Microsoft's global headquarters - calling itself The Poet.

Interestingly, the arty-farty types who live in the area are now divided into two warring factions. In most London boroughs, social upheaval is triggered by gentrification, but in this case it's degentrification that's the problem.

The Oxbridge-educated residents are up in arms about the influx of ghastly, cash-rich celebrities like Sadie Frost and Liam Gallagher who have turned their beloved patch into a tabloid stalking ground.

Long-term residents want to preserve the atmosphere of slightly shabby gentility, whereas the new arrivals are intent on turning it into a London outpost of the Hollywood Hills. The fact that the wife-swapping celebs are a great deal richer than the local artists and intellectuals makes their presence in the area that much harder to take.

In this civil war, The Engineer occupies a rather delicate position. On one hand, it's been serving goat's cheese salad and lamb moussaka since 1995, so its 'gastro' credentials were established long before the arrival of the rich and shameless. But on the other, it's a firm favourite of the area's tabloid pin-ups. Indeed, there has been many a Sunday afternoon when the pub's staff have had to be extra careful about not seating Jude Law and Sienna Miller too close to Sadie

Frost and Jackson Scott. Now, presumably, they'll have a fifth person to worry about because Daisy Wright, Sadie's 'weekend nanny', is reportedly a regular as well. A better name for the pub might be The Paparazzo.

I went there for a late lunch on a Wednesday afternoon with Tamara Harvey, the director of the satirical farce I've just co-written about the Quinn-Blunkett affair. I arrived on my bicycle, which the barman suggested I should park in the garden.

On a normal weekday afternoon, this alfresco dining area would be heaving with yummy mummies, but since it was pouring with rain it was deserted. Virtually the only other customers were three bluff Yorkshiremen propping up the bar. As far as I could tell, Tamara and I were the only ones eating.

The website describes the food as 'modern British with more than a hint of Pacific Rim' and, while that's perfectly accurate, it could equally well describe every gastropub in North London. I started with grilled quail on a bed of almonds, grapes and potato chips and followed with baked salmon fillet, while Tamara had goat's cheese, red pepper and potato roulade, then peppers stuffed with sweet potato for her main course.

I thought mine was just about OK - all gastropub food tastes as if it's been mass-produced in some central location and then shipped out on Domino's-style scooters - but Tamara complained that her food contained 'too many flavours', which was slightly odd given that both her starter and her main course were virtually identical. All in all, it was undistinguished, perfectly adequate fare, the gastropub equivalent of a ploughman's lunch.