London Dining Guide

[TVD]

The Grenadier is a somewhat classier version of the Nag's Head, the other side of Wilton Crescent.

[Leon]

Local to me are the Prince of Wales, in Cleaver Square, SE11 and the Anchor & Hope, The Cut, SE1 ( a gastropub, run by former St. John people).

The Jerusalem Tavern in Britton St, Clerkenwell, EC1 serves excellent beer.

Today I was very impressed by the Beer Wharf, in Borough Market. They brew their own beer on site.

[Trilby]

I like the Eagle on Farringdon Road - possibly the first gastropub in London and still a great place for food and drink. I also enjoy the Jerusalem Tavern, as recommended by Leon. At the other end of the spectrum, the Enterprise on Walton Street (one of London's poshest pubs) is always reliable for a simple meal.

Although there is a division of opinion here about St. John, I like eating at the bar there. Very simple, rustic food - but like in the restaurant there, always very good ingredients. The bread, which is all baked in-house, is superb.

[whittaker]

Last weekend I was a guest at a simply marvellous restaurant in Notting Hill. The Ledbury has opened on the site of the former Dakota restaurant in Ledbury Road. The chef is Brett Graham, whom you may recall from his days at The Square. The Ledbury is sister to the The Square, Chez Bruce, La Trompette and the Glasshouse, all worthy destinations in their own right. My guess is that this will pick up two Michelin stars easily. The restaurant serves modern French cuisine to a superlative standard.

[Parishow]

[quote="whittaker" My preferred steak venue at the moment is Boisdale in Victoria. As London's best cigar and malt whisky haunt, Boisdale has much in its favour. (a perfect venue for a LL dinner).

I had dinner at Boisdale's in December (along with Rules, The Goring, and Wiltons') and although (this was my first time here) the food was quite good, I think, BUT the service was atrocious (and I'm an easy goin' 'kinda guy"). The waitstaff was more engrossed in talking to each other about there boy/girl friends then servicing their clients. The front house manager, kept coming over to help me, sensing that I was anoyed. It put a damper on the meal. I walked away and really could not tell you whether the food was good or not, the bad service on my mind.
I expect bad service in the United States, I expect good service in France (which I have always had in up market restaurants) and have been quite please with the service overall theses days in London (not up to the standard of course in the old days at the Connaught...but one can not live in the past - sigh!).
So there you have it.
Am I wrong? Expecting just a modicum of service when I am paying over 80 pounds for dinner? Maybe I'm sounding like my late grandfather? Am I getting old? javascript:emoticon('')
Wink

[whittaker]

Am I wrong? Expecting just a modicum of service when I am paying over 80 pounds for dinner? Maybe I'm sounding like my late grandfather? Am I getting old? javascript:emoticon('')

I'm disappointed that you had a poor experience at Boisdale. At the Victoria restaurant I've always had commendable service, although I wouldn't rank the service as highly as Rules or Wiltons. The Bishopsgate version of Boisdale on the other hand is, in my experience, a poor copy in all aspects.

Note that I hold Boisdale in esteem for its steak, malt whiskey, cigars and general atmosphere. In other regards it is fine but not exceptional.

[MK]

I expect bad service in the United States, I expect good service in France...... .

That's odd. That is the opposite of my experience.

[tteplitzmd]

If I could live in the past, I would live my breakfasts at the Connaught. It was a work of art and choreography unsurpassed in terms of Staff and Service. Food was quite good at the time. I still have breakfast there when I stay at the Hotel, but tried unsuccessfully to explain to the waiter that the jasmine tea he brought me was not the Indian (Assam) tea I requested.
My understanding is that there was mass defection of the restaurant staff with the change in Chef. Dining room staff seems now to be a group of adolescents without parental supervison, so to speak.

[Parishow]

If I could live in the past, I would live my breakfasts at the Connaught. It was a work of art and choreography unsurpassed in terms of Staff and Service. Food was quite good at the time. I still have breakfast there when I stay at the Hotel, but tried unsuccessfully to explain to the waiter that the jasmine tea he brought me was not the Indian (Assam) tea I requested.
My understanding is that there was mass defection of the restaurant staff with the change in Chef. Dining room staff seems now to be a group of adolescents without parental supervison, so to speak.

Thank you! Thank you, I thought It was just me, gettin' old, thinking the same thing.

I still have breakfast menu's from the hotel, that I pull out now and then and pine over those wonderful days of yore!

They say you can't go home again, but it would be wonderful just one more time, to dress for breakfast, go downstairs to the restaurant; with it's gleaming mahogany wall panelling, extraodinary chandelier, exquisite bone china and best of all, the wonderful staff( that moved like a ballet company , what a joy to watch and experience) and feast once more, on kippers and Kedgeree and pots of Indian or China tea.

Oh! Mr. Zago, where are you, when in this day and age, we could use you?

[TVD]

Gentlemen, I could not agree more. The old Connaught was a true spiritual home. After Signor Zago retired, Mr Russell (if I recall correctly) took over. He left when Blackstone started to interfere. That was at the end of 2001. I was 26 then, the Connaught had been part ofmy life for half that time. I obviously wasted the first thirteen years.

A few years ago, after the changes, there were only three employees left who served under Paolo Zago. The one who is still around today is the barman in the American Bar. Splendid chap.

And one never needed the menu for breakfast. I usually had superb fresh rasberries, no matter what season, followed by a full cooked breakfast and a few pastries to finish. Michel Bourdin employed some of the best pastry chefs in London. It showed.

I assume the current setup is more profitable. But if there is any divine justice, whoever was responsible for rocking the craddle should be worried. I know of no other hotel that was so special, and which created such deep and long lasting emotional bonds.

[tteplitzmd]

As most of you may know, Blackstone sold the residual Savoy Group (less the Savoy) to an Irish Company, too soon to see what the consequences are. The fellow who followed Mr. Zago, who's name I am searching for, was really quite good, but then dispatched summarily due to cost cutting. The "survivor" is from the old Savoy Group, rather corporate, but nevertheless a survivor. What you see now is every space potentially revenue producing.

I am not very knowledgeable about fine food, but I do enjoy a full breakfast. The Connaught was the best. Now it is rather a prix fixe affair, poor attention to detail, userious pricing, and very lax dress code. I have to say there is nothing on the Angela Hartnett's Menu Menu I would eat for lunch or dinner. It used to be the case that the chef would make anything within reason for which the kitchen had the ingrediants. No longer the case. Curiously there is still some flexibility in the room service menu.

I have to admit to also retaining the old Connaught breakfast menu, as well as several of the daily full Restaurant menus, which were worthy of an hour or so study, in the American Bar before dinner.

Terry A. Teplitz

[whittaker]

One of Gordon Ramsay's new ventures has established itself as a current favourite in London.

Maze restaurant, located in the despoiled Grosvenor Square, is under the innovative stewardship of head chef, Jason Atherton, a protégé of Ferran Adria (El Bulli). The menu comprises a selection of tapas style dishes. For a first visit you won't go wrong with the Chef's menu, accompanied by the Sommelier's clever selection. As you would expect when eating with this approach, not every dish is sublime but the best are beyond divine.

To add to the experience, you can choose to dine at the Chef's table in the kitchen. Ramsay has learnt how to make this quite an event, as your table for just six is raised on a slight stage, giving you a perfect window over which to observe the efficient and mostly calm preparation.

[storeynicholas]

Crockford's gets my overall vote.

[Luca]

As someone who ends up eating in London restaurants a couple of times a week, year-round and needs to rotate venues perhaps I can be of some help. I'd be happy to recommend restaurants by type / area. Ask away.

Given the nature of this forum, perhaps I can start with a few very ELEGANT restaurants which also feature good food (too often those two qualities are mutually exclusive in London)

The Wolseley (Piccadilly) -- International cuisine staples from another era and top-notch in the style league

Aurora (Liverpool Street) -- Modern menu but with a classic bent. For City Gents.

Rules – (Covent Garden) – Cliched’ perhaps, but still unbeatable.

Bibendum (Brompton Cross) – The ur-Conran restaurant. Long ago ceased to be a “fashionable” place, it is now a very stylish place. Great food, great wine list.

La Trompette (Chiswick) – Perfect French polish in the semi-burbs.

Fino (Charlotte Street) – Tapas for very smart people.

Asia de Cuba (St. Martin’s Lane) – Fusion food as it should be; slightly ‘modern’ but still elegant.

That’s a start…

[storeynicholas]

Many of the places mentioned so far are places that people (especially businessmen and tourists) go to be seen. Some more obscure but excellent places which real Londoners go to are - for fish and chips - The Laughing Halibut in Strutton Ground SW1 (biggest and best); Toff's in Muswell Hill (great batter), Live Bait (all over the place and nice with the house champagne); for seafood at a higher level, Sweeting's in Queen Victoria Street (try the gulls' eggs in season and their black velvet) is up there with Wilton's and then there is Green's In Duke Street, St James's (also excellent house champagne - try the smoked haddock Parker-Bowles ) and the old Wheeler's restaurant in Duke of York Street (sole goujons); wine bars - I second Gordon's - quite mad place - and propose the Boot & Flogger at London Bridge (atmosphere - good for a tryst) and El Vino's in Fleet Street (great for 'I said to him and he said to me' types; Basil's in Basil Street, Knightsbridge (jazz music sometimes); The Tapster off Buckingham Palace Road (cozy); pubs - there's the Flask in Highgate (ancient site and lovely position) and the Hare & Billet and the Crown in Blackheath (both old and very atmospheric); and for more of the same - The Spaniards, Hampstead (Dick Turpin's pub), The George, Borough High Street (a favourite with Dickens and does good mulled wine in the winter), the Cheshire Cheese (one of Dr Samuel Johnson's haunts and later frequented by Yeats and other writers), and the Tipperaray, Fleet Street (the original Irish pub in London - note the flagstone in the doorway and the spelling on the looking glasses - used to do Beaujolais Nouveau breakfasts) and, for a good Indian (even if you can't manage a whole one), there is the Temple Bar and the Temple Bar Tandoori (Crane Court and Fleet Street respectively) - which Asian friends claim to be some of the best in London - but they in the city and not the west end - in the west end there is an excellent Indian called Chor Bazaar in Albemarle Street. I must say that the power of advertizing is well shown by the by-rote recitations of Gordon Ramsay et al - there are equivalents and his better and often for less. Most comfortable dining room is in Crockford's Club.
NJS.