If for instance they were in London for only a few days, staying centrally and wanted to experience a real pub, I'd say the Guinea on Bruton Place all day long. Superb pub, great beer, top landlord, fantastic food. You absolutely can't go wrong recommending the Guinea, and similarly Brasserie Zedel in Piccadilly never fails to wow.
It has an unremarkable looking cafe thing upstairs (looks a bit like a jazzed up "Cafe Rouge") but that's not it. It's DOWNstairs where the fun starts, all art deco and mirrored poshness. Once you bypass the cloakroom & hit the restaurant, the whole thing opens out into a cavernous throwback to restaurants of old, all starched tablecloths and waiters who are far more smartly dressed than you are.
The menu is about the size of a Subbuteo pitch and all in French. Don't be intimidated, it's cleverly designed and actually not as big as it looks. There is an English version available but don't ask for it, trust your O level grade C which Mrs Jackson coached you to and Google translate, you'll work it out.
They'll bring crusty baguette and salty butter while you're looking at the menu and playing "let's all guess how many people work here". If you've ever tasted better bread and butter you're more travelled than me, it's sensational. If you can, don't eat too much of it though or you won't want dessert.
I've been loads of times over the years and can honestly say everything is pretty fab really. Last night, ninety minutes earlier I'd eaten an "American Hot" pizza at the Comedy Store before going (pretty good it was too), and drank four pints of beer. Given that, I swerved the steak (rib-eye, it's lovely) for the first time here in ages. Somewhat bizarrely (it caused consternation on our table anyway) I had a herby omelette with fries and some salad. The fries here are always sensational, the omelette & salad were too. One of our table had a venison thing which they seemed to really enjoy, Sarah had ravioli (sorry, can't remember the filling) and for the life of me I can't remember what the other lass had.
For desserts we had poached pears, some chocolate mousse and a couple of floating island mirangue thingies. Having tried them all, everything was lush but I'd go for the island one.
Look, it's a fantastic restaurant this. Not pricey either, we had a bottle of Picpul or pitbull or whatever it's called, some coffee and one had a cheeky cocktail. It was £145 all in including service. They do a prix fix menu (set, who am I kidding?) which there's nowt wrong with and is about twenty quid. Equally, if you want to watch someone in an evening dress singing jazz standards and telling you stories about New York in the sixties (invariably accompanied by a balding fella on the piano called Gordon) you can visit the "Crazy Cocks" bit next to the restaurant bit downstairs. It's flippin good actually, and about twenty five quid for a bloody good night out that's something completely different.
The toilets are great too. Zedel is a triumph, go.
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