Simpsons Tavern

1757! How’s that for being around a long time? Came here just for the experience and had a great time, some nice beer and good food. Ask for the stewed cheese, it’s like Welsh Rarebit, cheese over bread, and very filling!
Enjoy!

This place was off a little side street. Not the normal place i would go to. Ambiance was great. Waiters very attentive and quick. I had the Cottage Pie, sausage and cauliflower with cheese. Simply amazing! Sausages in London are much better than stateside in Florida. I would have taken more with me i could have. Looking forward to going back.

This is a fine example of an old-​fashioned City institution, the chop house. A very odd mix of public school dining hall and old man’s pub, this won’t be everybody’s cup of tea. The food is unexceptional but hearty — think a good lunch day at, say, a remote boarding school in Suffolk, and there are a number of idiosyncracies. If you ask for the stilton, you’ll be presented with a whole cheese (several previous [temporary] owners). And if you have a roast, the question may arise as to whether you’d like a sausage. This is a test; the correct answer is «Yes». So, don your old school or regimental tie, leave the good woman at home (sorry, it is a bit of a blokey institution, although women aren’t actually barred), and tuck in to a hearty repast that won’t have changed much since 1855, accompanied by at least one bottle of claret.

Average food but plenty of it in a shared booth.
Would have scored higher but was slightly taken aback to be told that the tip we had left was not enough! Was slightly confused as I thought tiping was optional.

Open on the current site since 1757, this is a very traditional eatery. If you book, you eat upstairs where you sit in wooden pews on fixed tables and a cockney waitress with a flea in her ear will take your order from a menu that changes daily. Sitting there, in the few short minutes you’ll be waiting for your fare to be served up, you are aware of the ghosts of city gents and banker past who have gobbled down the same lunch that you are about to consume for over two centuries.
My colleagues and I opted for the roast pork belly and the Welsh rarebit to start. Being a Thursday the mains of the day we selected were by steak and kidney pie for the chaps and roast beef for the ladies with spinach, bubble and squeek and roast potatoes on the side. The roast pork belly was marvelous served with a tasty crackling and mustard, the beef was cooked perfectly (red in the centre) and the home made pie was so generously apportioned that it would have sated the hunger of the entire population of Dickensian London.
It’s only open at lunch time on weekdays.
Hot tip: If you just walk in and there are no free tables downstairs you may have to wait in the bar for a seat at a table, if you walk upstairs and say you haven’t booked, they will probably be able to fit you in.
I was in here again today and had the roast pork with stuffing which I had with spinach, cauliflower cheese and chips. The spinach deserves a particular mention, it’s great. Four of us ate here today and together with a small drink each it all came to £58 for the lot.

Traditional City eaterie. Daily specials provided by long-​serving staff. Try the steak and kidney pie with bubble and squeak (add a sausage if you’re really hungry). Be prepared to wait and share a booth/​table and the waitresses prefer a cash tip!

Remember that scene from Oliver Twist when young Oliver all doe eyed and s**t wanting some more gruel looks up at Bumble the Beadle character and asks «.Please sir I want some more…» To which Bumble sinisterly sneers in reply… MORE…YOU WANT MOOOOORRREE… makes me think English people are f***ing tough and even cruel sometimes (that’s why I like em’ btw)
All of this was just to set the scene for what has got to be one of my favorite old school fry up joints in The City. …Been there for age’s…I even like it when the smoke starts to fill the room from the grill… yorkshire pudding, brown ale, battered fish… all the primary food groups of British cuisine are represented here (cheeky for sure) …may not be for everyone. but just right for this yank on frequent biz to «Blighty» A grade

Wow. I though I knew this part of London, but I had never stumbled upon this ‘traditional English eaterie’ until invited by some work colleagues. We turned up late without a booking, got a table in the basement and within minutes had our beer, pie and mash and fish and chips. It would be no exaggeration to say the place has probably not changed in the last 200 years. Absolutely amazing. And shut in the evenings.