Dial Restaurant & Bar

Dial's location is Seven Dials that very charming part of Covent Garden where seven roads including Mercer Street meet. The bar looks onto this roundabout and is a wonderful place to sit and watch the world go by.

The restaurant is quite simply one of the best in London and one of the most reasonably priced with two courses from the set menu costing £21.00 and three courses £27.50. Everything about Dial works well. The staff are welcoming and helpful, the ambience relaxing, the décor is extremely pleasant with mirrored walls, comfortable seating for intimate couples or sociable groups and throughout, very attractive table settings with flowers, tall glasses and candle light. And the cuisine is among the most imaginative and enjoyable one can encounter anywhere.

Think of soft crusted venison, ratatouille and muscatel dumplings, or crispy skinned wild sea trout with spring pea juice and streaky bacon or the truly peerless Lancashire hot pot. Everything on the menu has been thought about carefully, prepared from the best ingredients and cooked to perfection with flair and imagination. All courses are cooked against orders. The starters show the same panache – broad bean risotto with meade roasted quail, or skate wing with crushed avocado and yellow mustard oil. The desserts are wonderful as is the wine list with an informed selection mostly from the New World and France. House wine is about £16 per bottle and other reasonable prices abound for many interesting wines.

Back to the bar and watching the world go by. Those of us thus engaged need not miss out on the excitement of the restaurant menu since the same imagination extends to the bar/lunch menu. Judge for yourself – salad of cured fallow venison, roasted peaches and mint: rare herb rolled tuna, avocado salad and pumpkin seed oil and all for about £8 each. And don’t forget afternoon tea, £9.50 served from 2:00pm–5:00pm. At Dial they think of everything!