The key to Camden

The Fox Pub & Dining Rooms, EC2, won best gastropub at the recent Tio Pepe/Carlton London Restaurant Awards. The Fox is sister to The Anchor & Hope and The Eagle - two pubs with their own place in the gastropub pantheon. One day, when gastropubs are recognised as being to Britain what the brasserie is to France, I will boast that I met all these pub-food legends.

Sadly, all they'll remember of me is an arsey call urging them to hold me a table at the no reservations Anchor & Hope after two wasted trips down to Waterloo to try to eat their food. They wouldn't. This happened again when I tried to review the Lock Tavern. They have a roof terrace. Summer-evening fantasies kicked in. I rang to book a table. No bookings. We flew over there in a taxi. 9.15pm. Kitchen closed. Words are had. We win, but feel the dagger looks from the Polish chef.

The Lock has the feel of a Lower East Side bar - long bar, painted black, cool, a bit grubby. It's very Camden, but perhaps the fact that it is as close to Primrose Hill as Camden Tube gives it, for all its grunginess, loud music and art-school-rock attitude, a sophisticated air. This clientele was university-educated and welldressed in a thrifty Franz Ferdinand style.

Overall it felt like a great place to spend a day getting toasted on beer. The roof terrace was full of ear-splitting Blondie, the tables in the bar were full of drinkers, and so we ate in the chilly garden under fairy lights and a jumbled wooden awning. Prada Elaine looked at the table and said something I will never hear her say again: 'I'll spit, you wipe.'

We took bowls of ordinary, slightly medicinal-tasting olives and mixed nuts, which after picking out a few almonds were just a bowl of peanuts. The chicken breast was dry and tasted strongly of chicken liver. The frozen chips were as good as they can be, but they did that thing that frozen chips do - quickly go cold. There was an insipid, slightly sour but not totally unpleasant barbecue sauce to go with it. Prada Elaine's messy-looking salad with peppers, flavourful mixed leaves, and char-grilled artichokes had a dressing so light it was almost undetectable. The Pompous Surfer had salmon, which had been deep-fried in oil that wasn't hot enough, hence the shiny breadcrumbs. 'Nice, but pedestrian,' he said.

Perhaps we should have gone for the Square Pies on the menu instead, because the food felt sloppy. Assume this was due to us turning up and demanding it when the chef was hoping to go home after an 18-hour day. I'd still come back here. The place has a good atmosphere, efficient service and, I suspect, much better food than we experienced.