Restaurants

The London branch of Joe Allen opened in this basement back in 1977, a dozen years after the Manhattan original. It can’t have changed much in the intervening 32 years. Sure, the theatre-industry crowd who flooded here in the 1980s have been supplemented by the inevitable tourists, but the dimly lit room – its brick and wood walls lined with yellowing posters for long-forgotten shows – remains incomparably atmospheric. The place bustles with activity and buzzes with conversation but, miraculously, is never hurried and never loud. Service too is an old-fashioned treat. The team of white-shirted, black-tied waiters and waitresses patrol the room with the quietly competent assurance of dancers who’ve found their calling in the chorus line. The comfort cooking is carefully unreconstructed, quietly expensive and fairly hit and miss. That said, the positives (caesar salad that was crisp, fresh and entirely as it should be; a tender pan-fried pork fillet with sweet-potato fries that tasted better than its dreary appearance) just about cancelled out the negatives (rubbery mushrooms, a very wan quesadilla). It ain’t broke, so they didn’t fix it.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2009