Southbank, American Restaurant Guide

“Amazing grass-fed” USDA prime steaks (hand-cut and dry-aged for 28 days) are the USP of this NYC-based brand, whose London outpost has a Manhattan-esque location, on the ground floor of the landmark Adelphi Building, just off the Strand. No-one doubts the quality of the offering, and the odd reporter had their best meal of the year here (“amazing!”). But the level of value is a perennial issue and even a fan who rated their visit as “outstanding” noted: “the price is high… everyone seems to be either on holiday or on expenses!”

This Theatreland relic retains much of its 1970s Manhattan charm – it’s the long-established sibling to a famous NYC brasserie by Times Square, and moved five years ago to a new Covent Garden site just around the corner from the old one (though you’d never know: it looks just the same). As a destination for “great cocktails” it’s superb, but as a restaurant its retro American brasserie fare and steaks (with famous off-menu burger) is decidedly “tired and past its sell-by date”… as it has so often been over the decades.

Opened in 1870 as London’s first licensed casino, this impressive Covent Garden mansion is proof that it takes more than a fine space in a handy location to make a terrific eatery. Relaunched as a luxurious American restaurant in 1991 (by the son of a Tory grandee), it aims to import Manhattanite sophistication, top-quality surf ’n’ turf and high-class brunch to the capital, alongside a popular Martini bar. But, while it does still receive the odd nomination as a place for a business lunch, it’s largely ignored in our annual diners’ poll nowadays.

Giant nachos, a bucket of beer and a platter of jumbo shrimp – if that sounds, good head off to these “large and vibrant” US-style ‘Bar.B.Q & Crabshacks’, which have multiplied in recent years from their age-old Chelsea home to colonise Covent Garden, Canary Wharf and Westfield Stratford. They are the kind of places you can make a reservation for 20 and they won’t blink. Top Menu Tip – “great lunch and weekend deals”: e.g. “lobster, salad and chips with a glass of Prosecco for £15 in WC2 – what more could you ask for!”

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”.

2021 Review: In less than 20 years, Danny Meyer has transformed his New York City hot-dog cart into a global fast-food brand giant with eight outlets in London – including a Covent Garden flagship that was revamped earlier this year. Ratings remain remarkably solid for “a chain that does what it’s supposed to do”.

The Atrium – a “beautiful” glass-ceilinged space in a New York-style boutique hotel carved out of the former Bow Street Magistrates’ Court – is undoubtedly one of the most spectacular and “atmospheric” settings for a meal in Covent Garden. But one or two reporters feel that “they need a better menu” as the current one is “underwhelming” (“food was average with a few honourable exceptions”).

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”.

2021 Review: Since 1971, this age-old rocker has grown from its first site, near Hyde Park Corner, to 186 globally, and 2019 saw the group reinvest massively in the capital, with not just a new hotel (on the site that was once The Cumberland) by Marble Arch, but also with the July 2019 opening of a 19,000 sq ft, multi-level, new London flagship at Piccadilly Circus. The latter opening includes a menu shake-up, which introduces an unsuspecting world to new culinary delights, including the ‘24-Karat Gold Leaf Steak BurgerTM’; (as well as the retail opportunities of ‘the world’s largest Rock Shop”’). For silver-haired reporters (who were alive for the chain’s founding) – a generation by-and-large untroubled by the hipster burger revolution – the “generously meaty” patties of the original are “still the best”, and one early report on the hotel says its restaurant “really rocks” too…. Even allowing for cynicism about the effects of nostalgia on the tastebuds, the brand fares better in the survey than most mass-market offerings.

“THE place to go for top-class Californian cooking in London” – Victor Garvey’s Soho five-year-old may be “eye-wateringly expensive” (“the price, ooh la la!”) but serves “top-notch cooking well deserving of its Michelin star”. “SoLa is that rare place that sources genuinely top-class ingredients and cooks them to perfection”: presenting them in either a 10-course tasting menu for £139 per person, or 17-course tasting menu for £229 per person. There are also drinks pairings to the above (at £170 and £230 per person) and a “fabulous” wine list drawn mostly from the US (and primarily, but not exclusively, from the West Coast). Despite refurbishment two years ago, the café-style ambience is the weakest link in the experience.

2021 Review: In less than 20 years, Danny Meyer has transformed his New York City hot-dog cart into a global fast-food brand giant with eight outlets in London – including a Covent Garden flagship that was revamped earlier this year. Ratings remain remarkably solid for “a chain that does what it’s supposed to do”.

2021 Review: “A nice, laid-back American buzz” has helped win a loyal following over the years for this small chain of Kansas City-style diners: one of the first in London to bring BBQ indoors. “It’s a fun place” (in the right mood) and the food is “decent” and in man-sized portions, but “not particularly special”.

2021 Review: “A nice, laid-back American buzz” has helped win a loyal following over the years for this small chain of Kansas City-style diners: one of the first in London to bring BBQ indoors. “It’s a fun place” (in the right mood) and the food is “decent” and in man-sized portions, but “not particularly special”.

2021 Review: Since 1971, this age-old rocker has grown from its first site, near Hyde Park Corner, to 186 globally, and 2019 saw the group reinvest massively in the capital, with not just a new hotel (on the site that was once The Cumberland) by Marble Arch, but also with the July 2019 opening of a 19,000 sq ft, multi-level, new London flagship at Piccadilly Circus. The latter opening includes a menu shake-up, which introduces an unsuspecting world to new culinary delights, including the ‘24-Karat Gold Leaf Steak BurgerTM’; (as well as the retail opportunities of ‘the world’s largest Rock Shop”’). For silver-haired reporters (who were alive for the chain’s founding) – a generation by-and-large untroubled by the hipster burger revolution – the “generously meaty” patties of the original are “still the best”, and one early report on the hotel says its restaurant “really rocks” too…. Even allowing for cynicism about the effects of nostalgia on the tastebuds, the brand fares better in the survey than most mass-market offerings.

2022 Review: This ‘Philadelphia dive bar’ in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, has certainly “got the American vibe”, with “US-style beer and bar food” giving a real taste of the City of Brotherly Love. Philly street food classics such as the hoagie and cheesesteak are on the menu – and “it’s not health food, that’s for sure”. Reporters are divided on the results – “defining the category” for fans, “pretty underwhelming” for sceptics. There’s now a second site at Westfield Stratford, complete with baseball batting cages, but a 2021 crowdfunding bid to raise £150,000 for a massive bar under the railway arches in Leake Street, Waterloo, struck out.

“What is better than an amazing breakfast?…” and you are certainly spoilt for choice all day long at this greasy-spoon-esque chain, which is celebrating its 20th year in 2024 with the addition of a St Pancras branch to its empire of 16 caffs (11 of them in the capital) and 3 pubs.

2023 Review: “US-style dive bar” in Shoreditch “serving what may well be the finest bar-meal/hangover-cure in London – beef chili in a hollowed-out brioche bun, topped with cheese and your choice of chili sauce in varying levels of insanity”. Tim Brice, aka ‘Captain Chili’, took over the former site of Rok (RIP) to open his little corner of Americana in February 2021. Apparently the Cincinatti chilibomb was developed by Greek immigrants who adapted Tex-Mex chili con carne in the 1920s.

2021 Review: “A nice, laid-back American buzz” has helped win a loyal following over the years for this small chain of Kansas City-style diners: one of the first in London to bring BBQ indoors. “It’s a fun place” (in the right mood) and the food is “decent” and in man-sized portions, but “not particularly special”.