Restaurants in Covent Garden
Enjoy the great range of well-priced international cuisine in Covent Garden
If you fancy some spice, are itching for Italian or are just in the mood for a great burger, Covent Garden has a range of restaurants to satisfy. Try Clos Maggiore for traditional French fare or Opera Tavern for Spanish. Wherever you go for dinner, get dessert from gelateria Scoop. Check out our guide to the best mid-priced dining options in Covent Garden. Do you agree with the choices? Use the comments box below or tweet your suggestions.
Great Queen Street
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
Great Queen Street is a great all-rounder, which you shouldn’t take to mean a restaurant that is merely reliable. The menu here always holds enough interest to seem special, but you can just slope up in your most casual strides and still feel welcome. The vibe is close to that of a gastropub – and indeed the space is a converted pub – but you’re here to eat, not sink a few pints and mop them up with roast pork belly. Our last visit fizzed into life from the start with glasses of
- 32 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AA
- Main courses £10.80-£22
Mon Plaisir
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
Set in Covent Garden, London’s self-proclaimed oldest French restaurant attracts a mixture of tourists, businessmen, and students taking their parents out for a meal. It’s a charming spot spread over four intimate rooms, all crammed with French bric-a-brac – the likes of vintage advertising signs, cockerels and antique brass kitchenware. While prices are on the steep side in the evenings, the lunchtime deal is an attractive budget option. Mon Plaisir’s menu focuses on traditional
- 21 Monmouth Street, WC2H 9DD
- Main courses £16.95-£23.95. Set lunch £12.95 2...
Sitaaray
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
Bollywood or bust’ might be a more apt title for this extraordinary little duplex dedicated to Indian film. Enter Sitaaray’s ground floor or mezzanine and you’re assailed by dance music and movie clips from plentiful flatscreen TVs. Take a seat in the boudoir-like interior and prepare to be assailed by food. Though there are à la carte options, the buffet deal is the draw. Warning bells should sound: belt-busting feeds in theme joints rarely cause gastronomic joy – but they do
- 167 Drury Lane, WC2B 5PG
- Set dinner (5.30-7pm) £14.50 2 courses, £16.50...
Bill's
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
If you are looking for the unconnected restaurant run by Australian chef Bill Granger, called Granger & Co, click here; Bill's (London) is not connected to bills (Sydney). The original branch of Bill’s opened in Lewes, East Sussex in 2001 with a simple plan to combine an old-fashioned grocer (baskets of local fruit and veg) with a mid-market deli (displays of own-label jam, olive oil and Continental treats) and an informal café serving an unpretentious British/Med menu. As is
- 13 Slingsby Place, St Martin's Courtyard, WC2E 9AB
- Main courses £8.95-£15.95
Jamie's Italian Covent Garden
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
Jamie Oliver has got everything right at his chain of mid-priced restaurants designed to compete with the likes of Carluccio’s, Giraffe and Strada. It certainly leaves those last two in the shade. At our latest visit to the Covent Garden branch, someone knocked a nearly full bottle of red wine off a neighbour’s table and the staff couldn’t have been nicer about it. They supplied colouring sheets, crayons and retro View-Masters (with picture menus) to the kids, and didn’t get
- 11 Upper St Martin's Lane, WC2H 9FB
- Main courses £9.85-£15.95
Opera Tavern
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
Despite growing competition, the Opera Tavern remains one of Covent Garden best dining options and among London’s top tapas restaurants. Formerly a pub, it’s split into a slightly charmless upstairs restaurant and a cosy, mirror-backed bar at street level. The latter has been stylishly updated with chocolate leather bar stools, copper spotlights and an open grill; the main kitchen is in the beer cellar. The Spanish-Italian menu is kept fresh with regular specials. The signature
- 23 Catherine Street, WC2B 5JS
- Tapas £2.55-£14.95
Polpo Covent Garden
- Rated as: 4/5
- Price band: 2/4
Four new restaurants within two years is pretty good going. That’s the tally of Russell Norman and Richard Beatty, proprietors of Polpo, Polpetto, Spuntino and now Da Polpo, all in the West End, all heavily inspired by New York Italian joints and all achingly hip. By the time number four comes along – only months after two, then three – it’s little wonder Polpo IV’s starting to look like a chain restaurant, presenting fans with a creeping sense of déjà vu. Here (again) are the
- 6 Maiden Lane, WC2E 7NA
- Dishes £3-£14. Meal for two with drinks and...
Le Deuxième
- Rated as: 3/5
- Price band: 2/4
- Offer
For theatregoers this understated restaurant is a bona fide West End hit. Playing nightly to an appreciative audience, waistcoated staff nimbly navigate the tables (which bear starched-linen tablecloths) under the careful orchestration of the immaculate maître d’. The pace is fast but never rushed; the approach formal, but never brusque. That said, the gloss of French savoir faire stops short of the menu, which has merely a whisper of Gallic flourish in the shape of escargots
- 65A Long Acre, WC2E 9JD
- Main courses £14.50-£18.50. Set meal (noon-3pm,...
Clos Maggiore
- Rated as: 3/5
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
It’s easy to see why this place has won a reputation as a ‘romantic’ restaurant: it’s something like a cross between a gentlemen’s club and a refined country inn. The light, flower-bedecked conservatory at the back and the moodily lit, wood-panelled rooms in the front are equally attractive. The romantic reputation pays off in an interesting way: Clos Maggiore feels distinctively relaxed and unshowy. We attributed this to a clientele consisting almost entirely of couples rather
- 33 King Street, WC2E 8JD
- Main courses £15.50-£21.50. Set meal (lunch...
Dishoom
- Rated as: 3/5
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
Dishoom describes itself as ‘a Bombay café in London’ and is fashioned after that city’s ‘Irani’ caffs, where a cup of spicy masala chai and small eats are always on offer. Design-wise, it could have all gone depressingly ersatz, but the ceiling fans and framed pictures of Bollywood stars make for a retro-yet-modern aesthetic. The place is undoubtedly a crowd-puller, open from breakfast (for egg, bacon or sausage nan rolls with chilli jam), straight through to lunch and dinner,
- 12 Upper St Martin's Lane, WC2H 9FB
- Main courses £1.70-£10.90
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