Slick and splashy grande dame

Throgmortons thankfully eschews the current City design mantra for slick, splashy and expensive. The retention of the splendid Art Nouveau interior at this Edwardian grande dame is to be applauded.

A spiral staircase, lined in a shimmering gold mosaic, sweeps down to a suite of time-warp oak and marble salons stuffed with shabby, chintzy seating of the type found in grand English countryhouses.

In the warm, clubby intimacy of The Long Room, we nestle into deep damask sofas and scan a wine list that includes interesting New World bins, such as a good New Zealand Stop Banks Matt Thompson Sauvignon Blanc.

The bar snacks - a warming pea and ham hock soup and moist fishcakes with spinach and sorrel sauce - are of the Nanny-knows-best variety and hail from Throgmortons' own street-level deli.

Charles Fontaine (ex-Quality Chop House) has been drafted in to provide pukka traditional British lunches in a glamorous, mirrored restaurant, where amber pear-drop chandeliers, quaint booths for two and an authentic Art Deco, putty banquette recall the elegance of old Pullman dining cars. A further bar, straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, serves coffee and brandies over a game of billiards.

Creative director Farika Skelton (who turned Holborn bar The Duke into a hot ticket) is a stylish gal with a Filofax to kill for, which accounts for the influx of way-off-their-patch early adopters who have been making this former Joe Lyons establishment something of a hip destination.

27A Throgmorton Street EC2. Tel: 020 7588 5165. Tube: Bank

Throgmortons
27A Throgmorton Street, EC2