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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
David Sexton's rating
Reader rating
Description: In the heart of Mayfair, a very useful corner gastropub, open 365 days a year; sibling to the House (Islington) and Bull (Highgate), it offers similarly solid cooking, and -- in this part of town -- the prices demanded for it seem eminently reasonable!
Food: 
Service: 
Ambience: 
Phone: 020 7499 2988
Website: http://www.therunningfootman.biz
Open: Breakfast (07.30-10.30 Monday - Friday, from 09:30 on the weekends) All Day Menu (11.30 till 22.00)
Dress code: Casual
Good for: Good food, Ambience.
Payment options: All major cards accepted
Never less than excellent: The Only Running Footman
Can there be a boundary of price and luxiness beyond which a gastropub cannot go and still claim the name? Apparently not. My personal marker for this border zone has always been The House in Canonbury. It was a spectacularly grotty local before being converted into the swishest gastro in all Islington, outdoing even The Marquess and The Draper's Arms in swellness. I've never eaten anything less than excellent here, nor ever failed to wince at the bill, even when not paying, so tender a heart I have. Mains alone go up to £22.50, even starters can be more than a tenner.
Now The Meredith Group, the owners of the House, and The Bull in Highgate, have taken over a rundown pub in Mayfair, The Only Running Footman, latterly known to locals as The Running Sore. In this epicentre of wealth, the prices seem fairer.
In the bar downstairs, they serve food all day, seven days a week, every day of the year, if you can get a seat. "Beer battered haddock, chips, proper mushy peas" is £12.50, Dorset crab salad salad with coriander and lemon, £11.75.
Upstairs, there's a surprisingly small dining room, not airconditioned and so quite stuffy, with velvety chairs, green leather banquettes and a swirly carpet. The music's a bit obtrusive (Louis Armstrong to Moby), the blinds remove any view.
But the modern British food, by Jeremy Hollingsworth, is impressive, if relentlessly rich. A Dorset blue vinney, pear, walnut and endive salad was a perfectly balanced take on the south-west France classic that uses Roquefort.
Tagliatelle of langoustine, sauce cardinale and nut brown butter (£9.95 as a generous starter, £18 as a main) had an intense shellfish reduction sauce, fat ribbons of pasta, topped with three juicy crayfish. You could swiftly eat yourself senseless here.
The Running Footman mixed grill (£19.95) includes Irish beef fillet, Elwy Valley lamb cutlet and kidneys, Saddleback sausages, Woburn Estate bacon and Footman black pudding and is probably not recommended by Harley Street cardiologists.
Suffolk free-range chicken, mash, hazelnuts, chive dressing (£14.95) was great comfort food but the accompanying stock was so reduced it made the lips stick together. A special of scallops with crushed potatoes (£ 17.95) delivered six delicious scallops, with a herby accompaniment. A Christ Church College pudding was a wonderfully crisp little tart with an intensely alcoholic lemony filling. The wine list begins decently at £13.50 but then accelerates fast. Even a Muscadet is £24, a Sancerre £35.
It would be a good place to take a foreign visitor to delude them that they've come to a country full of great and luxurious food. The quality here is at least the equal of the posh English restaurants obstinately patronised by clubmen at far higher prices - and it's already deservedly packed out. There's no faulting the professionalism of this group and its pubs. If pubs they still are.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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