Holborn, British, Modern Restaurant Guide

2022 Review: This independent fixture in legal-land (near the LSE) is a long-running staple of the area – welcoming, “always good value”, and with some interesting picks and bin-end deals on the wine list.

2021 Review: “Surprisingly good food and charming service” make it worth remembering this historic hostelry (refurbed in recent times), near the Royal Courts of Justice. You can eat in the ground floor bar, or in the upstairs ‘Pig and Goose’ restaurant.

Robbie Lorraine has upped sticks from Brixton with his Del Boy-inspired pop-up – a witty, multi-course trip back in time to the cuisine of the 80s and 90s (duck-liver paté, prawn cocktail…). This new home is part of a Grade II listed pub just off the Strand: not to be confused with Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, which is about ten minutes’ stroll away (although both claim Dickens as a former patron). No survey feedback as yet – reports please!

2022 Review: The former HQ of the Baptist Church provides the gracious quarters for this swish Holborn hotel, converted by design guru Jacques Garcia. Since Tony Fleming left in December 2019, the main food operation (formerly known as The Baptist at L’Oscar hotel) has shifted to this all-day ground-floor operation offering a more accessible, Parisian-café-style menu from breakfast through to dinner. Allan Pickett (former head chef at Orrery, and briefly chef-patron of Piquet) is the new head chef.

Founded in 1895 in Paris, the famous ‘Le Cordon Bleu’ culinary institute hit London in 2012 in Bloomsbury; and then opened here in the Lutyens-designed former Reuters HQ in 2022. All reports agree this in-house restaurant is “a beautiful room” – “light and well spaced” – if occasionally “lacking a bit of spark”. Service is “correct” and the modern European menu focuses on “seemingly simple dishes”, whose “realisation ranges from exemplary refinement to the merely satisfactory”.

It’s “all about the wine, as you might expect” at James Dawson’s “relaxed” wine-bar group, whose branches boast a “splendid list” of “high-quality and well-sourced” bottles. The food is very much “second fiddle”, though “unobjectionable”, while the most interesting venue is the original one, off Fleet Street, “hidden in the vaults of St Bride’s Church”. Top Tip – “go on a Monday night for wine at shop rather than restaurant prices”.

“The wine is – as always – the star attraction” at Mark Andrew & Dan Keeling’s original venue, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2025, and which is once again one of the Top-10 most commented-on entries in our annual diners’ poll. “Wonderful passionate staff really know the wines”: “the list is so long!” with select vintages listed on the “terrific blackboard, where there’s always something new to explore”. And the “intimate” (“slightly cramped”) environment is perfectly suited to tippling – an “old school” wine bar in Bloomsbury that (previously trading for decades as ‘Vats’, RIP) had been completely forgotten-about before they took it over. Fans say the “robustly delicious and bold” bistro food “nearly matches up, with some really good dishes kicking around here and there”. But “the bill can add up” (“those 125ml glasses don’t last long”); and while there were no specific criticisms this year, ratings here in general are more middling than once they were: perhaps the strains of now running three rather than just two sites?

“A very good pre-theatre meal” makes this mezzanine spot in a luxury hotel near Covent Garden a particularly useful option for eating around a show. It’s also “great for those who are gluten or dairy free”, and “the children’s chocolate-themed afternoon tea themed on Charlie & The Chocolate Factory is absolutely great”. Any downsides? It’s “a bit noisy”.

“Very decent” French-influenced food helps elevate this fine old Clerkenwell pub restaurant into being a “good all-rounder”, as does its attractive, glazed dining area. That said, it doesn’t attract the attention it did a few years ago when Henry Harris was at the stoves.

“Amazing steak (though the rest of menu is good too)” and terrific views over the City and St Paul’s share top billing at the flagship restaurant at the top of a handsome Grade II-listed former Smithfield market warehouse. It can be “a bit noisy”, but it makes for a “solid dining experience” that’s “always good for business”.

2021 Review: Promising, if limited, early feedback on this modern ‘wine parlour’ – recently opened by wine expert Andrew Gray (a merchant with a business at the Southbank Food Market) on a corner-site near Covent Garden (the erstwhile office-space of a Mr Charles Dickens); and with an excellent list of 70 wines: “limited food, but what they do is lovely; tiny space, but it’s gorgeous, and well worth a visit, especially as staff are so lovely”.

This “big, buzzy faux-Parisian brasserie” in the heart of Covent Garden certainly looks the part, but it “can get very busy” and “extremely noisy” as a result. It provides “lots of classic French cuisine”, but with very mixed results: fans say it’s “executed pretty well” but reviews overall are often jaundiced – for example: “dull food, impossible to chat… really bad experience and a ridiculous bill”.

With “light streaming through the windows”, this “big, airy space in Somerset House” is “such a beautiful dining room”: “not cosy” but “very elegant” and with “luxuriously spaced” tables, it’s a really “great choice for an intimate conversation”. Skye Gyngell’s cuisine “is not in-yer-face gastro, but simply thoughtful, beautiful and heartwarming”; and together with the “personal” service it adds up to a “delightful” overall package. Top Tip – “the set lunch and early bird ‘scratch’ menus are good value” (utilising food that would otherwise be wasted).

“This Clerkenwell bolt-hole remains a genuine experience, accessed through a nondescript black door and a rickety brass lift before coming round a curtain into the expansive two-tier dining room”. It’s part of a large, Grade II listed courthouse which features in Dickens’s ‘Oliver Twist’. “From the moment you enter and take the lift to the wow factor of discovering the room itself onto the excellent food (up to the point where the staff gently encourage you to leave) it’s a wonderful experience”. The room itself is “like nowhere else”: so “beautiful” and “glamorous”. But while it’s one of London’s most atmospheric dining locations, the rest of the experience holds up well, with an “eccentric but good” small plates menu which “contains all manner of interesting morsels” and “a great wine list with interesting and eclectic choices”. Top Tip – “A glass of champagne on the roof terrace in the sunshine is a wonderful prelude to a yummy lunch of sharing plates”.

This historic Holborn tavern – dating from 1549, if rebuilt a century ago – deploys its wood-panelled Dickensian atmosphere to good effect, with appetising bites served in the bar and a more involved menu in the upstairs Oak Room, complete with dining booths and an open fireplace.

2023 Review: “Recently revamped” with eight ‘boutique guestrooms’, this handsome Clerkenwell establishment is one of the oldest public houses in central London. There are too few reports for a rating as yet, but it looks promising and “the Sunday roast sharing board is pretty impressive”.

“Lovely jubbly!” – The ‘Naked Chef’ made his return to the national restaurant scene in November 2023 with this “rustic” venue inside the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, serving a miscellaneous menu mixing pasta, steaks and quite interesting sharing dishes (Lobster Thermidor say, or Chicken & Rabbit Pie) with the likes of burgers and Chicken Caesar. It inspired no particular criticisms, but it’s hard to get too thrilled: “a nice venue but the food’s average…”; “a good choice, but pricey for Covent Garden”.

“Sourcing from their 600-acre estate in Argyll and fish farm in Loch Fyne”, the Landsberg family have – with this “traditional-in-a-good-way” Smithfield yearling – “created a restaurant that serves a Best of British menu that is, generally, a roaring success”. “Sustainably sourced food is expertly cooked” and “while it emphasises nose-to-tail cooking, it does so in a much more restrained manner than nearby St John”. “There’s an interesting short wine list (including from their own vineyard in Provence) at quite modest mark-ups, particularly for the City”. “Coupled with friendly service, the result is awesome!”. Top Menu Tips – “Black Pig, Rabbit, Duck and Foie Gras terrine, which draw together its various meat components into one delightful whole”; also “a very good Clam & Mussel Chowder, quite a refined Morteau Sausage with well-flavoured Puy lentils; and first-rate faggots in an intense jus”.