White Swan Pub & Dining Room

Between the City and the lawyers' haunts around Holborn, this branch of the ETM Group - also responsible for the Gun, the Cadogan Arms and several other London gastropubs - caters well for its smart customers. The wood-lined ground-floor bar has an ample beer selection and superior pub food; the comfortable dining room upstairs is very much a proper restaurant, with a sophisticated, inventive Modern European menu.

Even barristers and commodity-checkers appreciate a bargain, though, and the express lunch menu (you must finish by 1pm) is a snip: two courses for £14.50, with three choices for both. Ingredients were especially impressive: a lovely, refreshing salad featured broad and borlotti beans and sugar snaps, all beautifully fresh, and berkswell cheese, an English sheep's cheese to rival any older European variety. To follow, pan-fried skirt steak with braised cheek, artichoke and bone marrow was a great, rich, generous mix, especially the punchy-flavoured cheek braised in red wine.

Stay on after 1pm and you can also choose from an extensive additional range that's still fine value; in the evening, there's a slightly shorter carte. As well as beers and cocktails, drinks include a serious wine list, with much available by the glass.