A no-frills feast slap bang in town

Restaurant-wise, Covent Garden is one of the great mysteries of London. It's the ideal spot to meet up with your mates, but try to suggest a great place to eat away from all the usual chains and you're always stumped. Not any more.

As non-fancy-pants restaurants go, Great Queen Street is pretty much perfect. All simple, masculine chic: casually hewn wooden chairs and snuggly ox-blood walls, it's brought to you by the men behind The Eagle in Farringdon, St John in Smithfields, and the eternally heaving Waterloo pub The Anchor & Hope. So the pedigree is evident.

This brasserie looks and feels like a well-loved gastropub. A stone's throw from Holborn Tube, its understated charm oozes with mouthwatering aromas, pulling you to the bar like a hungry Bisto kid. The menu is pared down to the point of being pretentious. A single sheet of photocopied A4 that changes daily, it's basically a no-frills list of nouns.

Witness the starters: asparagus, £6.40, bread and tomato soup, £5. Hold up - £6.40 is a lot to pay for a few spears of asparagus, even if they are in season and come with a little glass of melted butter and delicious hunks of bread. It's as if I had fallen victim to a Jedi mind trick: "This food is as cheap and cheerful as it looks..." Except that it's not.

Still, we were delighted with a monster steak pie for two (£44) served in a meat-spattered casserole dish. The vibe here is so relaxed it's like going to someone's house for dinner. The pie topping may have looked like a flat Yorkshire pud, but the hearty hunks of steak inside were a dream.

Afters were the only disappointment: a mingy, sponge finger-free strawberry trifle was three strawberries in a tiny glass with cream on top. But we were already so full of good feeling we didn't really mind. Great it really is.

Great Queen Street
32 Great Queen Street, WC2B 5AA