Restaurants

Londons Oldest Restaurant offers a theme-park experience, and an increasingly dispiriting one. The tone was set when we were left to kick our heels in a holding lobby too small for all the would-be diners, and the evening ended with the off-hand waiter briskly clearing away our not-quite-empty wine glasses. In between there were some good dishes such as a hard-to-get-wrong Isle of Lewis smoked salmon with capers and soda bread, and a pretty, delicate raspberry blancmange with candy floss (spun sugar) and macaroons but they were outnumbered by lacklustre ones. Fish and chips was cutely presented, wrapped in a paper bucket made of pages from the FT, but the chips were soggy, the batter greasy and the haddock pretty tasteless. First impressions of steak and kidney pie with green beans were positive too, but both steak and kidneys were tough, the gravy too thin, and the pastry no better than youd get on a shop-bought pie; whats more, the beans were stringy. Some solace can be found in the decent wine list and OTT decor (all mounted heads, framed prints and stained glass), but overall this is tourist food at tourist prices.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008