Andrew Edmunds the man died in 2022, but his name enjoys a glorious afterlife at the restaurant he founded in 1985 which, prices aside, remains heroically marooned in a Soho long lunch from the mid Eighties. But while, at that time, one’s fellow diners are likely to be ad execs and media types lamenting the long-lost glory days of expense accounts and no-one watching the clock, come suppertime the place is wall-to-wall romance, thanks largely to the compact dimensions of the candlelit, white-clothed ground-floor which enforces intimacy whether wanted or not, and the low lighting of the marginally more spacious, dark-green downstairs. (Actually, that’s not entirely true: lunchtime is also great for romance of the illicit, love-in-the-afternoon kind.) Either way, the food is judiciously prepared, simple modern British — cold roast pigeon with pickled ginger, mackerel with horseradish crème fraîche, buttery Dover sole and garlicky lamb neck — while the famously good-value wine list excels in bottles that sound all the more seductive whispered with the correct French pronunciation. Excellent service, too.
Soho’s best restaurants, from the Devonshire to Bar Shu
