Holborn, American Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: Actually in Holborn not Hoxton – “an all-pleasing place, with a cool bar area” that’s part of the Soho House group, tipped for its “excellent breakfasts” and “simple, classic burgers”.

This stunning Covent Garden mansion (once a high-class brothel) is named for the son of one of Thatcher’s cabinet ministers, who launched it in its current guise as a grand American restaurant; and for about a decade it was the height of fashion. It retains a “great atmosphere” – and also, something of a following for business, brunch and its martini bar. But, given its location and dramatic interior, it attracts remarkably little feedback these days.

The 2021 opening of a London branch of New York’s hip NoMad hotel brought a “wonderful transformation” of Covent Garden’s Bow Street Magistrates’ Court “into a bright, airy venue with lots of choice” for eating and drinking. Its “fab main dining room”, ‘The Atrium’, is a three-storey-high glass-ceilinged space with an extra-glam atmosphere, although “sometimes the food doesn’t match the setting”, being merely “OK, but no more than that”. The appointment of Lancashire-born chef Michael Yates, formerly of Northcote and Holland’s famous Oud Sluis, may lift its game.

“Like being in an old fashioned Parisian brasserie”, this big venue, “centrally located by Covent Garden Piazza”, provides a “hectic but impressive” backdrop to a meal. Many reporters feel “it has a whole lot going for it”, but even they often acknowledge either “seriously poor” cooking, or the trade-offs that a visit entails: “Yes it’s on the pricey side and the food is average really, but it’s still a tradition that we enjoy.”

The “Manhattan-esque atmosphere” is the perennial attraction of this Theatreland favourite (sibling to a famous NYC brasserie near Times Square), which retains the retro charm of a 1970s period piece, even though it was completely rebuilt on a new site just around the corner from the original one just four years ago. “Despite the luvvie buzz, the American food is decidedly second rate (though the off-menu burger is fine)”. “Prices are not unreasonable for the location”, however, and “the youthful staff do their best”.