TOWN

The dish three national critics wrote about is bread: a small warm loaf of potato sourdough served with Town house gravy, which is a bowl of hot beef dripping (Harden's).

Why go

Stevie Parle opened Dock Kitchen in Portobello, ran Rotorino in Dalston and built Pastaio, and Town is his first big central London restaurant since Joy in 2020. He took the Drury Lane site with the restaurateur Jonathan Downey, and it opened in May 2025 (Hot Dinners).

The interesting part is upstream of the kitchen. Parle has kept building the grower relationships he started at Joy, and Town became the first restaurant to serve beef from the grass-fed Oxfordshire herd at Wildfarmed, the regenerative farm owned by Andy Cato, whose flour is already in London bakeries. The cheese course comes from his brother and sister-in-law in Ireland. The pulses are Hodmedod's. The venue's own line for it is "regenerative farming, British produce and joyful, ingredient-first cooking" (Town).

The room was designed by Northend, who also did Ambassadors Clubhouse, and it reads as a space-age kitchen hatch under a retro backlit ceiling. There are three distinct places to eat and the middle one looks straight into the open kitchen. The bar is Kevin Armstrong's, who owns Satan's Whiskers, and the drinks are pre-batched so the service keeps moving.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the potato sourdough with the house gravy, first. The Kashmiri saffron risotto with roasted bone marrow, which Grace Dent called "sublime" and Giles Coren described as "osso bucco without all the boring shin meat" (Harden's). The Wildfarmed ribeye. Isle of Mull scallops with smoked chilli butter, by the each. The 100-Acre radishes with Hodmedod chickpea miso. And the cherry clafoutis, which Dent named the star of the show.
• Avoid: the thirty-pound smoked trout caviar, which Hot Dinners flagged as "punchily priced". Booking it as a pre-theatre sprint. And the outer sections of the room, if the middle is free.

What locals & experts say

• Grace Dent, The Guardian, 1 June 2025, five stars, on the pre-theatre question and the verdict: "the food is far too good to rush through in an hour"; the place is "Unmissable. Five stars." On the room: "a big, beautiful, ballsy, expensive-looking beast; a sleek, capacious, ever-so-slightly Austin Powers-esque, shiny-floored, caramel-coloured pleasure palace." And a warning worth having: it is "a feeder" and "not for anyone with a meek appetite". ref
• David Ellis, the Evening Standard, 25 May 2025, the first critic through the door: "a Wolseley, reimagined for the modern age... True, no one went to the Wolseley for the food, but I suspect they just might here." Parle is a "very good cook", obsessive about his suppliers, and "Town has no theme other than to serve good food in a knockout space." Ellis also did the arithmetic: wine from GBP 8 a glass and service at 10 per cent, "especially as said service is extremely adept". ref
• Giles Coren, The Times, who opened by declaring that he is friends with Jonathan Downey, one of the backers, so weigh it accordingly. His showstopper was the bread: "pure Nigel Slater in its acknowledgement that the lees of a Maillard reaction are the locus of 'tasty'. That the best stuff in the kitchen is often that which never gets as far as the dining room." ref
• Catherine Hanly, Hot Dinners, 22 May 2025, on the steak that made the supply story worth it: "Ribeye Wildfarmed steak served with green sauce and Town house gravy - a beautifully cooked steak that we can't stop thinking about." Same piece, on the vegetarian offer: "Anyone looking for vegetarian or vegan options will find themselves very well catered for here." ref

Good to know

• Where: 26-29 Drury Lane WC2B 5RL, sharing the frontage of the Drury Lane development with Caravan. Covent Garden or Holborn tube.
• Where to sit: three areas, and the central one looks into the open kitchen. That is the seat to ask for.
• Price: wine from GBP 8 a glass and service at 10 per cent, against a GBP 44 ribeye and a GBP 30 plate of trout caviar. Cocktails around GBP 12.
• Booking: recommended. Two private dining rooms take 8 to 10 and 12 to 18, and the basement lounge takes 20 to 75, or 40 to 100 standing.
• Diet: vegetarian and vegan are properly covered per Hot Dinners, with a charred baby gem with peas and Spenwood, and chargrilled hispi with pickles, seeds and Hodmedod lentils.
• The bar: Kevin Armstrong of Satan's Whiskers built the list, pre-batched, with four beers on tap and wine by the glass, half bottle and carafe.
• What has changed: the basement expansion the venue says has "doubled the size of our restaurant" arrived after every review above was written. It is being funded by selling GBP 1,000 cards loaded with GBP 1,500 of credit.
• Hygiene: Food Standards Agency rating 5, inspected 19 May 2025, Westminster, FHRSID 1827045. Clean across all three components. ref
• Who runs it: Stevie Parle with the restaurateur Jonathan Downey.

Jeff's take (his words)

• Note: none. His saved-places export carries an empty note for this row, so the master CSV's "Stevie Parle's Drury Lane opening" is enrichment text rather than his, and nothing here is attributed to him.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

must-visit — Build the evening around it and sit in the middle of the room. Stevie Parle has been cooking in London since Dock Kitchen, through Rotorino and Pastaio and Joy, and Town on Drury Lane is his first big central room since 2020, opened in May 2025 with the restaurateur Jonathan Downey. The dish everybody writes about is bread: a small warm loaf of potato sourdough with Town house gravy, which is a bowl of hot beef dripping. Giles Coren called it 'pure Nigel Slater in its acknowledgement that the lees of a Maillard reaction are the locus of tasty. That the best stuff in the kitchen is often that which never gets as far as the dining room.' Grace Dent gave it five stars in the Guardian, called the Kashmiri saffron risotto with roasted bone marrow 'sublime', and answered the pre-theatre question directly: 'the food is far too good to rush through in an hour'. David Ellis got there first for the Standard and reached for a comparison that carries a sting and a compliment together, 'a Wolseley, reimagined for the modern age... True, no one went to the Wolseley for the food, but I suspect they just might here.' Underneath the reviews is a supply argument. Town was the first restaurant to serve beef from the grass-fed Oxfordshire herd at Wildfarmed, Andy Cato's regenerative farm; the cheese course comes from Parle's brother and sister-in-law in Ireland; the pulses are Hodmedod's. The bar belongs to Kevin Armstrong of Satan's Whiskers, and the drinks are pre-batched so the service moves. It is expensive in places, and the thirty-pound trout caviar is the one line where the room asks more than it gives. Everything else earns it.