Restaurants

Bodean's

What looked to be a wafer-thin gap in the market turned out to be a mile-wide chasm. Five years after its speculative Soho opening, Bodean’s now has five branches...

Soho: 10 Poland Street, W1F 8PZ

Bodean's

Fulham: 4 Broadway Chambers, Fulham Broadway, SW6 1EP

Bodean's

Clapham: 169 Clapham High Street, SW4 7SS

Bodean's

City: 16 Byward Street, EC3R 5BA

Bodean's

Westbourne Grove: 57 Westbourne Grove, W2 4UA

The Diner

The accents are bright red rather than dark green, and there’s a little more nostalgia-inducing Americana around the place. However, from the contents of the menu to...

Soho: 16-18 Ganton Street, W1F 7BU

Automat

Forgoing the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ approach of the Ivy, this self-described ‘American brasserie’ is happy to talk up its celebrity clientele. Its website...

Mayfair: 33 Dover Street, W1S 4NF

Big Easy

This immensely popular Chelsea party palace is modelled on the kind of cheerfully ramshackle old crabshack you can still find along the Gulf Coast if you know where to...

Chelsea: 332-334 King's Road, SW3 5UR

Christopher's

The greatest asset of this Covent Garden favourite has always been the building in which it is housed. A handsome Victorian pile, the structure is reputed to have...

Covent Garden: 18 Wellington Street, WC2E 7DD

Dexters Grill & Bar

Part of the Tootsies corporate family, Dexters shares a similarly child-friendly ethic and almost identical menu. High chair for high chair, burger for burger,...

Wandsworth: 20 Bellevue Road, SW17 7EB

Dollar Grills & Martinis

Dramatically located in a huge old corner pub, its bare-brick walls covered in eye-catching Vegas imagery beneath almost theatrical lighting, Dollar isn’t really...

Clerkenwell: 2 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4PX

Eagle Bar Diner

The level of cultural interchange between New York and London these days is such that the Eagle Bar Diner feels more generically urban than specifically American....

Fitzrovia: 3-5 Rathbone Place, W1T 1HJ

Goodman

Muskovite steakholders bucking the recession

Mayfair: 26 Maddox St, W1S 1HQ

Green Door Bar & Grill

Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, Brooklyn… you’d think an American-inspired bar and grill would attempt to serve some of the better US beers available in London, but...

City: 33 Cornhill, EC3

Green Door Steakhouse

Gloucester Road: 152 Gloucester Road, SW7 4QH

Hard Rock Café

Arguably the most famous of the American chains, the top-of-the-pop-tastic Hard Rock has always polled highly in the burger charts. As you’d expect, the walls drip...

Mayfair: 150 Old Park Lane, W1K 1QZ

Joe Allen

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...

Covent Garden: 13 Exeter Street, WC2E 7DT

Lucky 7

Of all London’s quasi-American diners, Tom Conran’s cosy operation feels the most convincing and, though the word is fraught with difficulties, the most authentic....

Westbourne Park: 127 Westbourne Park Road, W2 5QL

Missouri Angel

City: America Square, 14 Crosswall, EC3N 2LJ

Missouri Grill

Unbecomingly located on a busy one-way system opposite Aldgate tube station, Missouri Grill wears its theming lightly. The 40-capacity room has been straightforwardly...

City: 76 Aldgate High Street, EC3N 1BD

Pacific Bar & Grill

Unexpected in these environs, the Pacific aims to bring some Stateside sunshine to dreary Goldhawk Road. The bar is to the right, a comfortable if not exactly...

Hammersmith: 320 Goldhawk Road, W6 0XF

PJ's Grill

Covent Garden: 30 Wellington Street, WC2E 7BD

PJ's Grill

Veteran restaurateur Brian Stein has built his empire on the principle that if you’re never in vogue, you’ll never go out of fashion. Named, apparently, after the...

South Kensington: 52 Fulham Road, SW3 6HH

Prohibition

Enacted in 1920 and repealed 13 years later, the American Constitution’s 18th Amendment would, in the right hands, make an intriguing theme for a bar-restaurant....

Wapping: Tower Bridge House, St Katherine's Docks, E1W 1AA

Smithfield Bar & Grill

Part of the Cheshire-based Blackstone Grills group, the Smithfield Bar & Grill has carved out a tidy niche as a smaller and less frenetic alternative to Smiths of...

Farringdon: 2-3 West Smithfield, EC1A 9JX

Smollensky's

Docklands: Reuters Plaza, Canary Wharf, E14 5AJ

Smollensky's on the Strand

Chicago-style chain Smollensky’s may have launched a sister restaurant at Canary Wharf and mini Metro offspring outlets across half of outer London, but this...

Strand: 105 Strand, WC2R 0AA

Sophie's Steakhouse & Bar

The ‘New York warehouse feel’ promised by the website is a little fanciful. Despite having opened in 2002, Sophie’s appears wedded to a very 1990s idea of...

Fulham: 311-313 Fulham Road, SW10 9QH

Tootsies Grill

Last time we visited Tootsies, four diners at the table next to us were in tears. Not that this collective misery had anything to do with the restaurant; parents...

Wimbledon: 48 High Street, SW19 5AX