The Wigmore

The Wigmore is attached to the Langham hotel, but is set out as a stand-alone pub. The twist is that the food menu is overseen by Michel Roux Junior of Le Gavroche, who runs cookery classes at the Langham from time to time (including on the day of our visit). The menu tackles pub classics but endeavours to raise them to a high standard. For more on the restaurant background, and comments on the short wine list, see my previous review. 

The cheese toastie is made from three different cheeses plus mustard and pickles with sourdough bread. It is hard to score a toasted cheese sandwich, but this is a very fine toasted cheese sandwich indeed. The bread is top notch and the various cheeses and pickles were in excellent balance (14/20).

Dingley Dell nduja (spreadable pork sausage) and sweetcorn croquettas came with an aioli laced with paprika and were very enjoyable, the exterior crisp, the flavour of the filling good, and the paprika adding a touch of spice. The sweetcorn was a good idea to balance the richness of the pork (14/20). A Scotch egg was a blanched quail egg wrapped in sausage meat and covered with a nest of fried vermicelli pasta, all resting on a gently spiced dhal. This is visually striking and enjoyable dish, with the spices subtle but still nicely elevating the dish (14/20).

A cheeseburger featured shallots and grilled ox-tongue in place of bacon, the beef pattie of good quality. I recently tried a few of London’s highest rated burgers, and this one comfortably surpasses them (14/20). On the side, fat chips were good, with crisp outside and cooked through inside. Smoked pork pie had excellent pastry, the filling containing caramelised onion as well as the meat itself, the colcannon on the side being fine in itself, the overall effect a touch rich. Adding something pickled or something acidic would balance the dish better e.g. some piccalilli (13/20).

By now we had eaten plenty of food, so skipped the solitary dessert option on the menu, a soft serve sundae. Coffee is from Union Roasters, one of the better London suppliers. Service was friendly and attentive. The bill came to £81 per person, with plenty of Gusbourne sparkling wine and some Guinness to drink. If you ordered more carefully than we did then you could have a meal for around £55 including wine and service. The Wigmore is an excellent take on traditional English pub food, providing a higher skill level than most pubs could manage without making the dishes overly fancy.

Further reviews: 27th Mar 2018