Built for business, The Mercer’s black-and-white dining room has all the comforts required to sustain a working lunch or dinner, without the pretence of a leisure destination. It’s a balance that works for regulars who value straightforward British cooking and smartly paced service over gentle design and oodles of innovation.
The menu offers some fond nods to the past including London ‘particular’ soup, rotating daily specials (corned beef hash means it’s Monday) and savouries listed alongside the cheese. Some ideas such as oysters with cucumber, gin and dill dressing are a little lighter, while mains major on simple grills, roast fish or venison, plus the house beef and Guinness pie.
To conclude, desserts of vanilla rice pudding with roasted nectarines or white and dark chocolate mousse with clementine are largely of the soft and comforting variety. A neat selection of English bottles is a point of interest on an otherwise rather straight-laced list.