Time, gentlemen, please

From final 'last orders' at the Belinda Castle to first Sunday brunch at The House, Caroline Stacey follows the transformation of an old London boozer into a cutting-edge gastropub.

The Belinda Castle didn't welcome strangers. The landlord might have done. The regulars, who treated the place as if they owned it, didn't. He was understandably eager to sell the lease. Plenty of shrewd professionals and idle speculators must have thought this Islington pub was ideally placed to go gastro. Turning an old boozer into a gastropub looks like the easiest way into the business of giving pleasure and making a merry living. But even for those who know what they're getting into, success isn't guaranteed. Some have hit the jackpot – just in this area of north London, The Social, The Duke of Cambridge and The Drapers Arms are packed – but a few echoingly empty done-up pubs exist to remind entrepreneurs to be wary.

At 28, Barnaby Meredith's CV is impressive: hotel management school in Switzerland, cooking at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, maître d' and then manager of Quo Vadis, and one of the team that launched The Well, a successful, ungimmicky gastropub in Clerkenwell. By last November he'd been looking for a pub for almost a year, and had seen and rejected 70 properties. "I was getting a bit desperate. But as soon as I walked in here I knew this was the one. I knew you could do so much with it, but because it wasn't on the beaten track I ummed and aahed." Now he's convinced himself it's the best site in Islington.

For the past three weeks The House has been open for coffee, lunch, dinner, wine, beer and glasses of grappa from the elegantly retro liqueur trolley Meredith had set his heart on. In a newly built kitchen extension, four chefs are turning out perfect parfait of foie gras and chicken livers with Armagnac and slices of toasted home-made brioche, meltingly tender shredded oxtail in a north African brik pastry parcel on densely buttery mashed potato with Shiraz sauce, and a sumptuous hot chocolate pudding with coffee ice cream. This is not, says Meredith, a gastropub. He'd prefer to call it a pub dining room. "More refined than a gastropub, not as intimidating as a restaurant. There will be no rules. You can eat what you like and drink what you like anywhere."

Whatever you call it, the holy grail's the same. The elements of location, interior décor, prices, food and service must alchemically come together as a convivial venue that draws customers away from the local competition. And into an atmosphere so seductive that they can't resist the third course, the second bottle of wine and one final digestif from the trolley. The wrong location can fatally skew an otherwise winning formula. Or not, in exceptional, unpredictable cases. The prices a place has to charge to pay the architect's overspend can put off the customers they'd counted on.

Gastropub watcher and restaurant writer Charles Campion has some words of warning. "Buying a pub used to be a cheap way to get a restaurant lease. Now it has become an animal all on its own. The look has been templated, and the food is formulaic. To succeed you have to be completely in tune with your surroundings."

No one knows how many pubs have spruced themselves up in the food department, and as Peter Haydon, brewing industry consultant and beer writer points out, as brewers start to fake the gastro part, there's a huge difference between former pubs serving top-class food and the bare-boards and blackboard menu effect with barely average food. He doesn't believe we've reached pub dining saturation. He says, in industry speak: "There is a growing market for premises that cater for fine dining arrangements," and that as times get harder for restaurants, gastropubs are set to pick up people who want to eat out and not pay West End prices.

There's no poetic justice in the restaurant world, but if anyone deserves to and ought to be able to make it work, Meredith and his team should. No one could accuse them of hubris. They've gone over budget by only £20,000, and he's paying himself a modest £12,000 a year and sleeping over the shop. But an account of the graft involved in turning a clapped-out pub into a destination for great food and drinks – not an off-the-peg gastropub – could still deter anyone who has imagined that offering entertainment is a cheery and profitable occupation.

Before the three-month negotiation with the landlord, it took Meredith eight months to get planning permission for the kitchen extension. Building that messed up the foundations. Repairing them took up all the contingency budget. The 1930s red-brick building had been altered most recently in the 1970s, leaving a legacy of tough-to-shift concrete. A dozen skip-loads of lavatories, panelling, bar fittings and foundations were carted away.

The building work was meant to take eight weeks. Three months later as everything comes together, there's still a mind-boggling amount to do before presenting the first customer with a bill. "You have to have it all completely mapped out before you start. And have more money than you thought you needed, because it f

always goes up," warns Meredith. What about the money? £100,000 came from him and one of his partners at The Well, £150,000 is the bank's, and Punch Taverns, the pub group that owns the property, is helping with structural work. Which, in turn, is reflected in the rent Meredith has to pay. To break even, he needs to take at least £11,500 a week. In three months he must start paying back the bank. It'll be sorted, he says, two years from now.

Above all, you need, says Meredith, "a very, very good business plan and experience." He's done the sums, and knows the business. His mother owned a hotel in Yorkshire. His sister Grace, general manager of The House, had worked at Golbourne House in Kensington, and in PR. They're young, attractive and connected. They have beautifully designed business cards for The House (with the postcode misprinted). The same designers responsible for their "identity" did the Groucho Club, Guinness and Go. "They usually cost an absolute fortune." Luckily, they are friends, and will be rewarded with a party at The House.

Both Merediths knew where to look for staff; Barnaby found the most important of all: the chef. Jez Hollingsworth had been head chef at Quo Vadis when Meredith was manager, and had since set up a luxurious restaurant in Singapore. He was bored, and prepared to swap a quiet life in south-east Asia for the chance to be busy in N1, and the buzz of cooking serious food in an open kitchen for customers he'd be able to see enjoying it. Meredith would make sure the chef had a kitchen that allowed their ambitions for the food to be realised. He spent four times the £10,000 he'd planned on a kitchen capable of feeding up to 250 people.

That's 150 eating indoors, and 100 outside. Meredith had once hoped to open in August and lure customers on to the terrace in the last of the summer's rays. As the Indian summer clouded over at the end of September, The House was still being built. At a site meeting it was swarming with people who have to be paid: the project manager, building manager and architect, a wood-stain man, two builders, a plumber, an electrician, sound-system guy and a couple more fitting the kitchen together. "A month ago, it was utterly trashed but it still had a good vibe about it. I've maintained that vision," says Meredith. "But I'm worried about lunchtimes. And about security. I'm worried about bums on seats. I wake up in the morning with my feet flapping together."

They need CCTV, computers and alarms to be working. That's before the bar is stocked, the furniture being specially made by a craftsman in Yorkshire is in place, everything is plugged in, and fired up in the kitchen, and all the glasses and plates and linen arrive. "Linen's an enormous expense but I think it's important. Every napkin costs 12p to wash. These are the decisions you have to make."

Hollingsworth has been planning the food since August. "We're hoping to offer West End food not at West End prices." He knows what the dishes cost. Meredith knows what he'll have to charge to make the mark-up he needs to pay the chef; starters will be £5.50-£10, mains £9.95-£14.

As sous chef Hollingsworth's brought in a mate from Quo Vadis days, Richard Turner, and will take on a couple more chefs and the pot washers when he knows he needs them. Wage costs are one of Meredith's biggest headaches. The £30,000-worth of opening salaries, to be paid before there are any takings, must be budgeted for. "I can't wait to get rid of the builders and start looking after people. It's a nightmare. But it's fun," Meredith insists. The plan was to open on October 3.

On October 4, a Friday, the sound system works, the paint's dry, mirrors are up. Three trips have been made to collect crockery and glasses. The terrace heaters are parked indoors; they're moving the furniture outside to clean the new wooden floor; Grace is interviewing a waitress on a sofa on the terrace. Staff – not as many full-timers as they'd like – have answered adverts. They've talked them through the wine list, and taught them the niceties of Calvados and eau de vie. The cellar's full of bottles. The dumb waiter doesn't work. "It has been very stressed, but I'm OK today," Meredith convinces himself through Marlboro Light fumes.

Cookers, fridges, Robocoups and mixers are all installed. There's nothing to stop the chefs cooking. Except the lack of gas. "We should have started on Tuesday," says Hollingsworth. "By Saturday we should be ready to rock'n'roll." They won't. There's still no gas. If it's connected early next week they could open next Saturday night. It isn't.

On the following Friday, at last, they're cooking: making pastry for tarte tatins, dough for bread rolls, and the stockpot is bubbling on the stove. There are crème brûlées in the convection oven, a blow torch ready to give them a wafer-thin sugar crust. Everything in the kitchen, Hollingsworth's department, is under control. Everywhere else, there's more to do. The builders have lost the keys to the old but indispensable safe in the cellar. It will have to be removed by crane, and replaced with a second-hand one. They won't have a working safe for five days; Meredith's pockets are full of cash for the tills.

When the doors open for Sunday brunch on 13 October, everything seems to be in place. Waiting staff are waiting, expectantly. The coal fire is glowing in the original brick fireplace, there are bowls of roasted nuts and a jug of tomato juice on the bar. But Barnaby's spirit trolley hasn't materialised. Grace admits they forgot to order the bottled beer; there's no house Champagne today.

By the end of the day they've served 88 brunches; omelette Arnold Bennett, smoked haddock rarebit, their big breakfast and oysters with chorizo are already an attraction. There's been no time to do any PR or advertise, yet by the end of their first week they reach break-even point, and take bookings for a couple of Christmas parties. It could be six months before anyone's eating outside and the kitchen can test its capacity to cook 250 meals. They don't much want the Belinda Castle regulars back, though the security giant on the door – not bouncer, please – has been told that people in trainers are allowed in. Strangers, at least 100 a night and some at lunchtime too, aren't just welcome, they're what The House needs. And deserves. E

The House, 63-69 Canonbury Road, London N1 (020-7704 7410)