Where To Eat Out In… Holborn
You know how it is when people try and rebrand with a new nickname? It always falls flat. No, we’re not going to start calling you ‘Jeebs’ when Emily will do just fine. Same with Holborn. After several years and millions of pounds spent rebranding as ‘Midtown’, the moniker hasn’t stuck and the area between Covent Garden and The City remains resolutely ‘Hoborn’.
However, despite dropping a ‘but you can just call me Midtown’ into every other sentence, the area has plenty to recommend it. Not least in the form of restaurants.
The Delaunay
The same people that brought us favourites like The Wolsey, Colbert and (as of April 2018) Soutaine, have a real hit on their hands with The Delauney. The restaurant sits on Aldwich and immediately evokes the atmosphere, and grandeur, of those grand European cafés that you’d expect to find in Vienna, Venice and other places beginning with the letter V. Bringing with it more theatre than many of the actual theatres which neighbour The Delaunay, the European menu is excellent and perfect post-work or pre-theatre, or both…
Where: 55 Aldwych London WC2B 4BB
Website: www.thedelaunay.com
Rosewood London
Rosewood London is one of London’s best hotels, but also contains not only a pie room (score!) but also one of the area’s finest restaurants. Welcome to The Dining Room, the brasserie is brilliant for British dining and, with its leather banquette seating, is incredibly comfortable to boot.
Where: Rosewood London, High Holborn, London, United Kingdom
Website: www.rosewoodhotels.com
Cigalon
Save yourself the nine hour drive and ferry crossing, for a real taste of Provence simply jump in an Uber and head to Chancery Lane. Cigalon is an authentic taste of the South of France, rather obscurely named after the chef hero in Marcel Pagnol’s 1935 film of the same name, the restaurant occupies a former auction house and features a double height dining room topped off with a glass roof. Highlights of the Provencal menu includes Côte de Veau, sauce Mentonaise and Panisses and Pieds et Paquets, and of course a wine list heavily geared toward the region (as well as Corsica).
Where: 115 Chancery Lane, Holborn, WC2A 1PP
Website: www.cigalon.co.uk
The Bull Steak Expert
If you want something doing properly, speak to an expert. So if you’re after getting your steak just right, then where else would you head other than The Bull Steak Expert? Bringing the taste of South America to London, the restaurant is authentically Argentinian and a steakhouse so successful they’ve now followed a lesser-trodden path and opened a second branch in Düsseldorf.
Where: 54 Red Lion Street, Holborn, WC1R 4PD
Website: www.thebullsteakexpert.co.uk
The Baptist Grill
Praise be! This gem of a restaurant sits in a converted baptist church within L’Oscar hotel and is, quite suitably, called The Baptist Grill. Which may sound a little Mary Queen of Scots but let’s run with it. The restaurant looks great, it’s dark and sumptuous and really quite beautiful. Not that it needs to be, the menu speaks for itself under exec chef Tony Fleming who famously won South Place Hotel their Michelin star for Angler.
Where: 2-6 Southampton Row, Holborn, WC1B 4AA
Website: www.loscar.com
