Bedford & Strand

The staff was great, and the room was spacious and the noise level low so conversation was easy. The wine choice… not so good.

Great steak. Great service. Well priced. Large selection of wines by the glass Fast menu for theatre goers.
Honestly I want to go back! We were all pleased.

A fantastic basement bar. I came here with a friend for a quick cocktail and appetizer and we were not disappointed. The drinks were delicious and were gone quickly. for food we had the beef tartare and chips. The tartare was delicious but the chips stole the show. Their mayo aioli is fantastic! While it came out a bit too hot to eat, the waiting was worthwhile. Would definitely recommend for good service, fun atmosphere, and yummy nibbles.

Loved this basement cocktail bar for a weekday glass of wine. Relaxing yet sophisticated ambience that offers a nice array of wine and food at various prices. The cocktails are pricey, but the wine and cheese route is the way to go. There is a restaurant space if you want a full sit down dinner.

Bedford & Strand was a welcome thirst-​quencher of a find on a weekday evening when my friend and I were on the hunt for a dark, wine cavern-​esque space where we could chat away without pumping background music getting involved in the action (sometimes a welcome addition — other times just not what you’re in the mood for). It’s always handy to have a lil’ catalogue in your head of quality city centre venues as it’s easy to get sucked into heading to less characterful joints on all the main drags for the sake of convenience, particularly around Covent Garden.
When it comes to the Strand, Gordon’s would normally be my go-​to vino supping venue of choice, but it can fill up quickly from around 5, so Bedford & Strand is a brill option if you’re looking for something slightly more chilled and with an equally decent wine selection — they categorise the wines by «good», «honest» and «decent», depending on what you’re looking to spend. There’s just something about sipping on a glass of red in an atmospheric basement bar that makes everything seem a wee bit better, even if you’ve had a dreadful day of it.
If you’re peckish there’s a reasonable bistro menu, and you can also head up to the deli counter and choose from plates of rock oysters, Casablanca olives, stuffed feta chilli peppers and Welsh rarebit.

Deciding to make the most of London Cocktail week, I took some friends to sample a couple of bars around The Strand, thinking ‘let’s make the most of discounted drinks and explore some new places!’ I found this hidden away restaurant/​bar and we descended a white tiled staircase into the depths. Slight image of an old Vicotrian mental hospital, but that (thankfully!) was quickly overturned when we went into a warm, slight nod to an old speakeasy bar, atmosphere.
Their promotion was a discounted cocktail comprised of gin & strawberry purée, but with a little added kick of chilli balsamic vinegar. A nice addition, it hit you at the back of throat after a slightly oversweet drink and made all the sugar in your mouth burn away, ready for another mouthful. And I do like to take another sip of an alcoholic drink!
Bar this cocktail, the others had a bellini and a strawberry collins with mixed success. Overpriced in my book (£10) I can name places around Covent Garden that do a nicer cocktail for cheaper, and given the hidden away charm of this place, you would hope that they would improve this to entice people in. Also, slow service. Maybe I was being impatient (as my friend pointed out everytime I glanced at my watch — in a slightly diva-​esque manner I have to admit) or maybe the staff was new, but it took too long to get the drinks and you could tell others at the bar were getting a tad annoyed by the service.
I want to give this place 3.5 stars with the extra half star due to nice atmosphere, but this time I’m rounding down for slow service. Definitely would give it one more chance though, brilliant location right by the Adelphi Theatre. All in all, a good cocktail

I’ve only been here for drinks but sounds like the food is definitely worth a try. I’ll need to remember that before I start stumbling towards McDonald’s on the Strand after a few too many drinks after work.
This place is surprisingly big with what you’re presented from the outside. Reserve ahead of time if you’d like a seat for drinks as there aren’t too many — unless you don’t mind sitting up at the bar. They have a good wine selection and was pretty happy with the montepulciano and savvy b that I ordered.

Going out around Embankment and the The Strand is always a bit of a challenge as everything is tailored towards the Traveler and the Tourist. Some places just don’t care if customers come back as the next train is already approaching full of unknowing victims.
So I was feeling hopeful with this bar, as it seemed rather decent and has some nice stuff on the menu. The ambient is really nice and rather tasteful. They have a bar section and a restaurant section, which kind of run into each other. Both of them nicely busy without getting too crowded.
Why three stars: Cheese board for £10 is a bit of a disappointment as it only has two kinds of cheese on it (one brie, one hard cheese) but lots of fruit. If I want fruit I normally order fruit and not cheese! Makes me wonder about the rest of the menu. Then the toilets are a real mess. Doesn’t make a good impression.

A very pleasant wine bar/​restaurant easy to miss if you weren’t specifically heading for it, but very central. The location and nature of the place lends itself to a fairly well-​heeled crowd I’ve not dined here, but the snacks (and cheese) are very good, and the wine list is well crafted (complete with a no-​brain-​required price segmented list of recommendations, as well as the list proper for the more confident wine bibber. Look at picking from the middle of the list, and expect to pay £20-£25 a bottle. Staff are by and large pleasant and business-​like, although occasionally a bit slow as the bar gets busier. A mid week visit is recommended, as Friday’s tend to be very busy

The ugly: Service. Now, to be very fair, our waitress was changed (without us asking) in between placing our orders and the first course being delivered, BUT. Our first waitress’ English was so poor that we had to point to the menu to tell her what we wanted — for both drinks and dinner. We ordered a bottle of wine for the table, which she brought out, uncorked at the table, and then set down for us to pour ourselves. When we asked her for extra napkins, it took literally ten minutes for one to be sent over. New waitress also never poured our wine, either.
The less-​than-​good: Portion sizes: now, I know we got the prix-​fixe, but I can’t imagine that a regular order would come out with any more food on the plate. The salads in the first course were pretty eensy, and not, like, arranged-​delicately-​on-​the-​plate-​minimalistically eensy. Just a few springs of greens thrown together with some goat cheese and hazelnuts, and plenty of white plate showing through underneath. Dinners portions were, admittedly, filling, but it would have been nice to have just a little more so that you could at least have the option of really gorging yourself, a sometimes essential component of a night out on the town. Finally, the crème brûlée was an excellent single serving, but not big enough that I let my friends share even a spoonful.
So why a four-​star review?
The good, which was oh-​so-​very: All those small portions tasted awesome. Between us, we had the goat cheese and hazelnut salad, the french onion soup, the vegetable ragout, the pork belly salad, the beef and dumplings, the chips with aioli, and the crème brûlée. I kept grabbing more chips to sop up the beef gravy once I’d devoured all the pillowy dumplings that reminded me of jumbo-​sized gnocchi. Everything was completely scrumptious. The crème brûlée was torched just the right amount, and the consistency underneath was about as perfect as I’ve ever had. The chips were thick-​cut, the sort you can tell were definitely potatoes once. The only bad thing anyone had to say about the taste of the food was that, perhaps (and this was not the case in my opinion), the «pickled» hazelnuts in the salad weren’t really working.
Also good: atmosphere. Although it is definitely suity, I would modify that it’s just a bit more dressy — fitting considering its location just off the Strand. The space is fairly large, since it’s in a basement, but they make good use of wood-​and-​glass dividers to make it feel more intimate. The noise level was questionably loud at times, but never uncomfortably loud. The bar spans the entire back wall and looks like it’d be a good place to sit and have a drink or two. The lighting level was perfect, soft enough that you’d want to bring a date here but not so dim that you’d feel like you ought to be on a date if, in fact, you weren’t. This may not mean much, but the décor and general ambiance definitely complemented the meal, and made the night, overall, a great and memorable experience.

My secret dating weapon. Looks and feels like an original art deco bar and has a surprisingly affordable menu which has clearly been put together with great passion and care. The bar staff are always nice and when quiet a bottle of wine has disappeared between myself and a fine lady to often glorious results. I came across by chance about five years ago and have come back a lot ever since.
Can be filled with fat cats and other unintentionally offensive typed but on the whole it is a truly unique place in the heart of London.

this place is starting to get a bit suity and expensive, yet its not stopping me going there, but I’ve cut back the frequency (just to expensive now)
The likes;
the wine list is split between good, descent, recommended (or something like that) and the guys behind the bar know what they are talking about. plus they have swapped out my drinks for me a couple of times when I haven’t realy liked it, which is so not the norm in London and I think a great touch. I also think nearly all are also sold by the glass so can suit all different taste buds of the group
This also has my favourite champagne (yet I can’t remember the name), not well known (might explain why I can’t remember the name ;-)), which has the most awesome biscuit flavours ever
I’ve only had a sit down meal here a couple of times and its always been nice, but what i love more are the picky food to have with your wine, they have a great selection of cheese, plus lovely hummos, olives, chips, extra… a great selection to share with friends
staff behind the bar are friendly and worth going back for
the not so great;
crowd is getting a lot of suits, which I don’t have an issue with, but i’m not keen on people flashing their cash with no manners, maybe because it gets packed but a couple of times me and friends have been knocked (not impressed)…oh and i think the prices have increased to meet the clientele

The food was average and the service was ok. When we ordered a second bottle of wine, the server just opened it at our table at left it there. She didn’t bother to fill any of out (empty) glasses. I was disappointed with the prawn cocktail — the sauce just seemed like mayo. My tuna Nicoise was goood, the tuna was cooked perfectly. My dining partners had the beef and lamb and commented that they were just ok. The highlight was the great wine, the restaurant itself also has a good look to it, although later in the evening it became extremely hot.

Surprised by this place, I was expecting a fancy pub, so this wine bar was a little bit of a shock. Down some ominous looking stairs, the bar was so empty that I had to check they were open (maybe people just don’t start drinking at 4pm these days).
Because of that, it was empty, very empty. Only two other people in the whole building. But, their rose was good (although annoyingly only in one rather large size, can we stop with that please? it’s like only serving pints, and that’s just stupid). £4.50 isn’t bad either, tasted more expensive than that.
Staff are friendly, décor is simple — dark wood, white table clothes, twinkly lights. I thought I’d found the perfect new wine bar in the area (Terroirs is often so busy you’re lucky to even get a table at the bar). But it seems everyone else knows about it too. Come 8pm when I made my way back, it was so busy we turned and left before even trying to get to the bar. It’s a nice little place, but early might be better than later with this bar.

An anonymous doorway on Bedford St, just off the Strand (see what they did there…) takes you downstairs and into a well designed white tiled, mirror lined bistro. It isn’t difficult to find, but is thankfully anonymous enough not to appeal to the tourist herds piling in to TGI Friday two doors up for their chicken wing shakes.
Desk bound working lunches are the norm in the UK, with work done over an actual lunch (by which I mean useful business related conversation) seen as a bit of a perk. They wouldn’t go for it on the continent… Bedford and Strand is the kind of place that Keith Floyd would have unearthed in a railway station in rural France. In short, the sort of place that we should all have access to regularly. They do a two course set lunch for £12 and to be honest, I’d be in there most days if i worked in the neighbourhood. A casual meeting with Ed Hitter in Chief was proposed and he kindly offered lunch at his ‘local’.
It’s a simple rustic French brasserie menu with a great little wine list priced by ‘reliable’, ‘honest’, ‘decent’ and ‘good’. I wasn’t drinking, but there were enough here by the glass that I was made to feel slightly envious. Like some of the best spots round here it was a former wine cellar, think Gordons or Terroirs, and there’s something of the dark, comfortable evening venue about the place. Leaving into the sunlight felt frankly wrong.
I can honestly say that there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have eaten from the menu. Cauliflower and White Truffle Oil soup vied for my attention among the starters alongside Chicken Liver Parfait, Goose Rillette and potted crab. We were on a time constraint so skipped sadly by and onto the mains. A couple of nearby city types from large local employer Coutts on the Strand tucked into large, padded well seared steaks, served with crispy looking thin frites. The money managers murmured their approval.
On a (slight) health kick, I skipped the Braised Rabbit in a Mustard Sauce and a wonderful sounding Parmesan Crust Pork Chop and went for the Chicken Caesar Salad. large slabs of plumb charred chicken breast arrived on a well seasoned salad with the (admittedly inauthentic) bonus of crispy bacon strips. The dressing was fresh, piquant and delightful. Ed Hitter in Chief took plump fishcakes in hand, they looked stunning, a mixture of smoked haddock and seasoned potato in a crisp crumb.
A very solid option for the area, and proof of Covent Garden’s delightful ability to reinvent old spaces and manage to provide well for the locals as well as the tourists, something it’s more difficult to say for transatlantic cousin, Times Square.

I came here for celebratory drinks, and, to be honest, I probably would have never come if it hadn’t been for this. The place just seems a bit pretentious, and its location made me think that it’d be filled with twats.
Well, the wine menu was far-​from pretentious, with ‘reliable’, ‘honest’, ‘decent’ and ‘good’ categories of whites, reds and rosés by the glass, carafe or bottle.
I mean, that’s as good as saying, ‘This glass of wine will get you reliably drunk’. And I like that.
The fact that ‘good’ is the highest praise is just plain awesome. So many times have I been to a wine bar and got the most expensive by-​the-​glass wine on a list to have been burned by the bitter flame of effected winebar snobbiness with wine from a turned bottle. Maybe it was ‘good’ at some point, but not now that you’re serving it to me for £7, in the wrong glass and with an attitude to match (coughBedalesBoroughMarketcough).
This is not the case at Bedford & Strand.
I got the ‘good’ £5 pinot noir, and it was better than good. It was great. No, better than great, it was outstanding. It was as if the gods of pinots smiled down upon me and gave me two wonderfully palatable and juicy glasses while getting me good and drunk with only a tenner.
But, I’ll be honest. The place WAS kind of rammed with twats. I wouldn’t go back unless I booked a table in the corner, all the better vantage point from which to brood and pass judgment on others.

Covent Garden, great for many things especially of the shopping or pottering variety, but when it comes to wartering holes it’s mostly one of two flavours, bad chain pubs and bad tourist pubs*, both of which fall into the overpriced camp and the latter into the bad booze camp.
It’s with this in mind that makes B&S all the more special. The place obviously has a minor confidence complex and hides its light under a bushel, or at least under an almost anonymous frontage.
But keep your eyes peeled and head down those steps and you’ll find one of my favourite hidden wonders.
The place was restored a few short years ago to its full former art deco glory giving it the air of an old speak easy meets The Reform Club. As others have pointed out it’s not a very well kept secret and can get very busy with post office and pre theatre types, so go early or late if its food you’re after.
The food is good without being special but likewise reasonably priced. Service excellent, wine list short and sweet with a good balance of choices and prices, and then of course there’s the impressive array of spirit talent behind the bar.
The cocktail list consists of old classics in keeping with the décor, but the staff know what they’re about, so ask for anything and you won’t be dissappointed, and might I add they do a very good gin martini.
I’m getting a bit old for up west these days (who’d have thought bones creaked in your mid-​thirties?!) but whenever I find myself there I inevitably gravitate towards it, a gin and wine soaked refuge from über trendy and self conciously ironic destination bars, it espouses old fasioned British virtues of good service, discretion, great quality, tripping over your own shoes on the way out and waking up wondering how on earth you got home and what on earth am I doing lying down on the bathroom floor, but it’s cold, so nice and cold… err…*ahem*.
Or perhaps that’s just when ever I’ve gone there.
Anyhow, remember, eyes peeled.
*Please let this not be a reflection on the tourists, lovely creatures except for the random stopping on Oxford Street, I meant bad pubs, not bad tourists.

You’re hard pressed to find a non-​chain in this part of town, close to Charing Cross/​Embankment and across the river from Waterloo (an area I’m pretty familiar with since it’s so easy to take a train there from where I live).
That makes Bedford & Strand a standout spot in my opinion. A friend recommended it as a place to meet for wine and dinner after work, and a few others had the same idea. Seems it’s a popular spot for after-​work folks who want to share a decent bottle of wine. I randomly picked a very expensive carafe of white (oops) to have with my friend and it was very nice — but I imagine the cheaper options were still pretty good considering the list as a whole.
After sharing the toast and hummus plate (meh… the hummus was muy garlicky, but came in a cute little jar with tiny spoons for spreading, so they get a star for cuteness), I tucked into my nicoise salad. The tuna was perfectly seared and the anchovies were actually tasty and not at all tinny.
I’ll absolutely be back. Such a cute atmosphere and wonderful selection of vino.

We had a fantastic experience here. We went later on a Monday night and missed the after work crowd. Be careful with this tactic as they may have run out of some of the popular menu items!
Most mains are hearty comfort food that match the cozy environment. I had the fish cake with creamed spinach and a poached egg which I would recommend. The chips are fantastic. Crispy on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside. The Dorset crab salad was also good, but was a thicker consistency than I expected.
The waitstaff is incredibly knowledgable about the wines on the menu. Just ask a few questions — they’ll be able to recommend some great choices.

Great ambiance, food that was just okay and spotty service is what we found the night we went to Bedford and Strand.
Maybe we needed to go earlier in the evening as the proximity of this restaurant to the theater crowd meant that many of the dishes (including the special of the day) were sold out by the time we showed up for our 8pm reservation.
But I loved the ambiance (this restaurant is located in the basement of a building) and you immediately think «old school pub» when you walk in. The walls are lined with white subway tile and the dark wood bar sets the tone for the space. There are a smattering of wood «bistro» type tables located throughout the place that lend a casual air.
The food we were able to get was fine, but since it wasn’t our first choice a bit disappointing. My white fish was just that– three pieces of whitefish served with pureed cauliflower. We were able to snag the last risotto special of the day (mushroom but it was a bit bland) and the final entrée was bangers and mash (and what could ever go wrong with that dish– it was great!)
Service was spotty even though there were several servers on the floor. We had to flag her down to get more drinks and to order dessert.
A big plus is that this is very close to the Charing Street Tube station so getting to and from is a breeze!
All in all– since I love the space so much– I need to give it another try– as the prices were reasonable, the beer cold and quick and a friend of mine swears by the place. Maybe I’ll head over there next before the theater!