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We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Fay Maschler's rating
Reader rating
Description: This new Covent Garden dining room -- largely backed by the same people as the legendary Anchor & Hope -- is "an object-lesson in understatement"; our early-days experience of its "pared-down British menu" was good rather than amazing, but early reporters say the place is a "triumph".
Food: 
Service:
Ambience: 
Phone: 020 7242 0622
Open: Open lunch Tuesday-Saturday noon-3pm, dinner Monday-Saturday 6-11pm.
Good for: Good food, Ambience.
Payment options:
Keeping things simple: Ana Dias, manageress of Great Queen Street, with a plentiful supply of 'the ultimate drinking vessel created by man'
The Anchor & Hope with bookings taken would be one way to describe the newly opened restaurant Great Queen Street.
Rob Shaw, Jonathan Jones and Michael Belben of that popular pub in The Cut all have a stake, as does head chef Tom Norrington Davis, whose cookery books - Just Like Mother Used to Make and Cupboard Love - make him an unlikely candidate for premises previously called The Rampage.
Most of the money spent on doing up the interior would seem to have gone on the kitchen, visible at the back on the ground floor. Tables and chairs are bare wood and some twee little sconces that might once have done service in the bedroom of a B& B illuminate otherwise unadorned walls.
But devotees of The Eagle and St John - background enterprises along with Anchor & Hope - know that the food is the thing. Who needs the embrace of soft furnishings or the twinkling of chandeliers when there is a seven-hour lamb shoulder in the oven and buffalo curd with prunes and Calvados for pudding?
I ate twice at Great Queen Street, on the first evening paying half price as they got themselves into gear. Menus change in part at each mealtime and usually include some dishes served for two, three or five.
I'll start with the palpable hits. Last Wednesday I bought my first English asparagus in the farmer's market that appears in front of Homebase in the O2 Centre on Finchley Road. The same evening I ate a rather more slender version in Great Queen Street cooked to perfection, served with a little glass of melted butter.
Crab on toast - descriptions are terse - provided a rich shellfish mixture heavy on brown meat, the tastiest part. Cauliflower cheese and morels, now in their short season, was a brilliant pairing but would have been even better had the cauliflower, which is cooked to order, been left a little longer in the boiling water. Morels are invariably an accoutrement of haute cuisine so it is good to find the funky little honeycombed mushrooms in a more down-to-earth culinary context.
Hereford beef was offered as heart or sirloin for one, rib for two and on the previous evening as onglet with a baked beetroot and horseradish salad. The beef heart had been cut into slender slices and grilled. I loved it. The chaps who shared the ribs also exclaimed with pleasure, not just over the flavour of the rare steak but also in praise of the chips and béarnaise sauce.
Gurnard is a bottom-feeding fish fast assuming a higher profile as fish stocks dwindle. Rick Stein sings its praises and so did the recipient of gurnard with broad bean and mint purée. Gurnards make a groaning or croaking noise, which may explain the fateful call of the Sirens.
Side orders of lentils and purplesprouting broccoli were very good indeed. Dishes that didn't altogether delight included a tough leg of rabbit, a snail and bacon salad overwhelmed by the saltiness of the bacon, and confit duck where not enough fat had been rendered out.
A practical, cogent approach to the eating out business is also evident in the wine list. Perceptive choices have been made and offerings by the glass (Duralex Picardie, "the ultimate drinking vessel created by man" ) and carafe made discoveries such as the flinty Basque Txacoli di Getaria 2006 possible.
Floor manager, the delightful Ana Dias, with grace and timing made both evenings a pleasure beyond the food and wines.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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