The Devonshire Soho

British, Gastropub·
££££
·
Gold Award
·

SquareMeal Review of The Devonshire Soho

Gold Award

Has any pub in recent memory captured the hearts and minds of Londoners quite like The Devonshire? Not even a year old and already sporting a nickname, The Dev is that pub from your Instagram feed - eternally packed to the gunnels with full and part time Guinness experts. Upstairs, messrs Carroll, Rogers and Palmer-Watts (yes, Ashley, once head chef of two Michelin-starred Dinner by Heston) have built perhaps the perfect grill room. Day boat fish, Scottish beef and quality crustaceans are cooked over metres of wood ember grills up here, before being ferried across two levels of dining rooms, plus a neat little roof terrace.

The restaurant feels very different to the pub - it’s notoriously hard to get a table, so the atmosphere is one of excitement. It doesn’t have the throbbing noise of the ground floor, but there’s a hum of anticipation and enjoyment. Staff are friendly, knowledgeable, and brilliant as they dart from task to task, keeping this almighty multi-floor behemoth rolling from booking to booking.

The handwritten menus are kept simple, with a straight forward but healthy collection of no-frills gastropub classics. Whoever The Dev has found to write these menus has perfect - almost too perfect - handwriting for a gastropub menu, which very much adds to the charm. There’s little mystery behind the dishes. Scallops, bacon and malt vinegar is exactly that - scallops cooked in shells, with bacon crumb and a good splash of malt vinegar to wake everything up. Simple, but perfectly executed. Iberico pork ribs, though not quite as meaty as your typical pork rib, make up for it with pure flavour and melting fat.

A pile of langoustines arrive with a gentle waft of smoke, and the soft flesh is easily peeled from the shell. They’re extraordinarily good, though not a snip at £36. The beef cooking is also sensational - a hulking beef chop is right on the money of medium rare, fat beautifully rendered and rested. Sure, you pay a pretty penny for all this - more than you’d expect in most other good gastropubs - but you can’t argue with the results. Besides, a table at The Dev is so impossible to get, you’re likely to want to splash out when you get there. If you’re on a budget, there’s also a superb set menu where three courses come in at under £30.

Perhaps the obsession over the downstairs pub is a little bit wild, but the hype over the restaurant is well and truly justified. Long may The Dev continue its reign as one of London’s very best gastropubs.

Good to know

Average Price
££££ - £50 - £79
Cuisines
British, Gastropub
Ambience
Cosy, Fun, Lively, Traditional
Awards
SquareMeal London Top 100
Food Occasions
All day dining, Dinner, Lunch, Sunday roast
Special Features
Dog friendly, Vegetarian options
Perfect for
Birthdays, Celebrations
Food Hygiene Rating

About

The Devonshire is a Soho gastropub brought to life by legendary London publican Oisín Rogers and Flat Iron founder Charlie Carroll. The former is famous within London circles as the long-time landlord of the Guinea Grill, and he has paired with Carroll to bring this double-floored, wood-panelled gastropub to one of Soho's busiest thoroughfares. 

The Devonshire is the culmination of an idea that Rogers and Carroll have talked about for the best part of a decade, and the hallmarks of both are easy to see across both floors of the pub. Downstairs promises to be a proper boozer, with Rogers pulling pints of quality beer and, of course, Guinness, served alongside home-made bar snacks like sausage rolls and the like. London's gastropub scene is as competitive as ever and The Devonshire is coming in all-guns-blazing, with an in-house butchery and bakery ensuring that everything possible is made on site to the pair's high standards. 

Upstairs you'll find a 'highly ambitious' wood-fired restaurant, where produce from the in-house butchery and bakery features heavily. The Devonshire goes all-out on produce, sourcing Scottish seafood like creel-caught langoustines from Oban, hand-dived scallops from Devon and the best day boat fish they can lay their hands on. There's also Scottish beef which is butchered and dry-aged in-house, then grilled over wood and served as rib chops, fillets, as well as in classic English suet puddings. 

As well as an a la carte, The Devonshire serves a three-course set menu, which returns to beloved pub classics like prawn and langoustine cocktail, steak and chips and sticky toffee pudding. 


FAQs

Are children allowed in the pub and restaurant?

Children are very welcome in the restaurant at any time and in the pub in the daytime. After 5pm the pub can get very busy and isn't really suitable for children.

Helpful? 0

Does the pub allow dogs?

Dogs are allowed in the pub. Small, well-behaved dogs are also welcome in the restaurant.

Helpful? 0

Do I need to book?

There are no bookings in the pub, but the restaurant is bookable via the website.

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The Devonshire Soho is featured in

Location

17 Denman Street, Soho, London, W1D 7HW
Website

Opening Times

Lunch
Mon 12:00-15:00
Tue 12:00-15:00
Wed 12:00-15:00
Thu 12:00-15:00
Fri 12:00-15:00
Sat Closed
Sun Closed
Dinner
Mon 17:00-22:00
Tue 17:00-22:00
Wed 17:00-22:00
Thu 17:00-22:00
Fri 17:00-22:00
Sat Closed
Sun Closed
Bar
Mon 11:00-23:00
Tue 11:00-23:00
Wed 11:00-23:00
Thu 11:00-23:00
Fri 11:00-23:00
Sat 11:00-23:00
Sun 12:00-22:00
All day
Mon Closed
Tue Closed
Wed Closed
Thu Closed
Fri Closed
Sat 11:00-22:00
Sun 12:00-21:00

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