Restaurants and eateries: Holborn's top 10 venues for dining out

Catering to a city slicking crowd of affluent professionals and office workers, the restaurants, dining rooms, cookhouses, gastropubs and saloons of Holborn are a foodie's dream! Diners can look forward to sampling a vast array of different tastes and cuisines from around the world, with some of the best venues in London for dining out in style dotted around High Holborn and Chancery Lane.

Fortunately for the hungry hordes of Central London, our team of food and drink aficionados has convened and agreed upon the top 10 restaurants in Holborn. We hope you're hungry!

P.S. If you're looking for a few pre- or post-meal drinks, check out our round up of the top 15 bars in Holborn, and if you're after some birthday inspiration have a look at our round up of the top 10 places to celebrate your birthday in London.

1) The Rosewood Hotel

If nothing else, the Rosewood Hotel finds itself at the top of this list for the sheer variety of different drinking and dining options it offers. For an elegant – and by no means cheap – meal, head to the Holborn Dining Room. A gorgeous grand brasserie with a classic decor, the Dining Room specialises in seasonal British produce with a focus on fresh seafood and quality cuts of meat. The menu's absolute showstopper, however, is Executive Chef Calum Franklin's selection of pies. Indeed, adjoining the main restaurant is The Pie Room (pictured above), where you can grab cold pastry perfection between 11am and 4pm on weekdays.

On top of all that, there's also The Terrace (currently transformed in to a magical woodland glade in partnership with Glenlivet) for al fresco summer/heated winter dining, The Mirror Room for lighter foodie fare and one of the best afternoon teas imaginable, The Lobby for a quick tea or coffee, and Scarfes Bar for nibbles and a few artisan cocktails.

rosewoodhotels.com/dining

2) Coming soon: Lucky Voice Holborn

Offering something a bit more off the wall than The Rosewood, when it opens on February 19th Lucky Voice Holborn will provide guests with a fun and relaxed dining environment in which to sample some of the tastiest grub in town. A selection of musical-themed small tapas plates and sharing boards like the kitchen's 'David Bao-ie' or 'Tinchy Sliders' are perfect to start, with meaty magnificence along the lines of BBQ ribs, sizzling steaks and beefy burgers for the main event.

Complemented by one of the best cocktail menus in London and the option of burning a few calories off in your own private karaoke room after dinner is finished, Lucky Voice Holborn is a must for anyone craving something a bit different next time they eat out.

luckyvoice.com/holborn

3) My Old Dutch

Two words: giant pancakes. A culinary staple of London since 1958, My Old Dutch specialises in mammoth 'pannenkoeks' that may well break your belt, but won't break the bank, with most mains costing between £10-15. There's an array of sweet and savoury pancakes or waffles to choose from, and vegan/gluten/dairy free options available for special dietary requirements. And if all that isn't enough, they also make some of the best milkshakes outside of Amsterdam!

myolddutch.com/restaurants/holborn

4) The Hoxton Hotel

Another fab local hotel with multiple dining options, The Hoxton's main restaurant, Hubbard & Bell, offers a menu of meat-heavy dishes of mainly European heritage, with the occasional surprise like a Nduja Goat Hot Pot thrown in to keep things exciting. The main restaurant is particularly useful for anyone suffering from late night hunger pangs, with food served between 7am to 2am – think of the poor head chef! – from Wednesday to Saturday.

For those after a more chicken-focused feast, check out the somewhat unimaginatively named The Chicken Shop in the hotel's basement. It's basically a much better version of Nando's – just look at that finger-licking brilliance pictured above!

thehoxton.com/holborn

5) Kintan

In Japan's culinary scene, cooking food over a shared grill with your friends and family is right up there with sushi and saké as a cultural touchstone. One of the first traditional Yakinikus (literally translates as 'grilled meat') in London, Kintan offers guests a unique interactive dining experience, as you choose your own combination of traditional Japanese ingredients to grill over a smokeless roaster in the centre of your table. Along with being great fun, the ingredients you're cooking often have several hundred years worth of taste-laden history behind them, so even a complete novice can't fail to produce a mouth-watering masterpiece!

kintan.uk/high-holborn

6) The Ship Tavern

A great little pub with a wood-panelled decor that seems like it was lifted straight from the pages of a Dickens novel, The Ship Tavern specialises in "Steaks, Chops & Grills". The menu is a smorgasbord of different meats, with everything from wood pigeon and duck to beef wellington and venison on offer. If you're feeling particularly brave, consider enlisting the help of a friend to tackle the Côte De Boeuf for two with bottomless chips! Oh, and as if that all doesn't sound traditionally British enough, there's also a massive selection of different gins to wash your food down with.

theshiptavern.co.uk/dining

7) Banh Mi Bay

A family business, Banh Mi Bay cooks up all the stir-fried, spring-rolled and Pho-noodley goodness you'd expect from an authentic Vietnamese restaurant. However, as the name suggests, the kitchen's real speciality is in producing some of the finest Bánh mì this side of Hanoi. The Bánh mì is a type of sandwich that resulted from the fusion of French and Vietnamese cuisine during the 19th century when Vietnam was a part of French Indochina. A combination of crusty baguette, pickled Asian slaw, coriander, fresh chilli, spicy pork and Pâté – Bahn Mi Bay's family recipe goes back several generations and is as perfect a meeting of east and west as your tastebuds could hope for.

banhmibay.co.uk

8) The Bull Steak Expert

Another must-visit restaurant for carnivores, The Bull Steak Expert does exactly what you'd expect – lots and lots of steak. Known for being one of the best Argentinian steakhouses in London, expect to sample every type of sausage and cut of steak in existence, with a perfectly matched wine list of South American reds and whites to help it all slip down. The Steak Expert Burger is a particular highlight of the menu – four different cuts of steak blended together with cheese, smoked bacon, onions and salad on top. Delicioso!

thebullsteakexpert.co.uk

9) Vanilla Black

After all of the meaty establishments listed so far, it's about time we get to one for the herbivores among us! Vanilla Black is a gourmet restaurant that solely produces veggie and vegan cuisine, with the sort of clean presentation in its dishes you'd normally expect to see from a Michelin Starred kitchen. On the pricier side, the extra money is well worth it for a veggie dining experience that's a far cry from the miasma of pasta bakes and vegetable curries that are usually on offer for London's vegetarians and vegans.

vanillablack.co.uk

10) The Holborn Whippet

While food at The Holborn Whippet is decent if unspectacular – the menu is mainly made up of pizza and fries, though they also offer a surprisingly good Currywurst of all things – the selection of beer is so good that it is a definitely worth a visit for all lovers of the amber ale. The pub always has 16 craft beers on tap – 10 keg, 6 cask – and is the only independently owned public house in Holborn.

holbornwhippet.com

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