City, British, Traditional Restaurant Guide

For “old school cooking in a traditional setting” few London restaurants can genuinely live up to this “unfailingly beguiling” Victorian time warp, which has served “expensive but gorgeous” fish and seafood, English puds, tankards of beer and exclusively French wines to pinstriped City gents for more than a century. “I take all my most important clients here – it’s a treat!”

2016 Review: This truly “Dickensian” chop house (Charles was a regular), is a treasured “timeless” period piece, serving “traditional City fare”; lad’s business lunches aside though, “it’s a disgrace that this wonderful venue has such poor food”, and the wine choice isn’t so hot either – “‘Would you like red or white?’ just doesn’t cut it anymore!”

“I imagine Billy Bunter would have enjoyed Simpson’s!”. This “City institution” dating back to 1757 is tucked down a Dickensian alleyway and has “barely changed for a century”, making it well worth a visit, even if the food – “simple British stodge” – “is not really the point”.

2014 Review: River views, and a “lovely and light” (if Identikit) interior, justify a trip to this large Thames-side Geronimo Inn, which in particular is “a worthy, post-work, destination”; its fish and seafood can be “great”, but “simple things can let it down”.

That its main claim to fame nowadays is as the location for TV show First Dates speaks volumes for the unimpressive performance of this modern steakhouse, by St Paul’s, which has never really made the grade with its natural City business-dining constituency. “Of all the D&D London places, this is near the bottom, with impossibly slow service, tables too close, little ambience or magic to the room itself, and average food”. (And in real-life, heart-throb maître d’ Fred Sirieix doesn’t work here, but at Galvin at Windows on Park Lane.)