TastingBritain.co.uk -The Booking Office Restaurant @ The Renaissance St. Pancras, London
The Booking Office at The Renaissance Hotel in St. Pancras is one of those places that I only realised was on my list of ‘places I have to eat in, in London’ once I’d actually been. I think I realised a few minutes in, staring up at its beautifully ornate high ceilings. Living inside the truly magnificent St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel (which only recently finished nothing less than a decade of renovations) the building was originally conceived by Sir George Gilbert Scott and opened as the Midland Grand in 1873. It really is palatial in both its interior and its exterior. It was originally built as a hotel for well heeled train travellers, and more than a century later, is doing pretty much the same thing. The attachment to St. Pancras Railway Station does give the place a kind of frenetic energy, and a few of the hotel rooms have amazing views over the inside of the station.
Anyhow, as you may have guessed, the Booking Office Bar (which is where we spent our ridiculous evening) is built on the site of the station’s former booking office. It seems to have lost nothing of the original room’s history and character – just look at it. On a foodie note, good news comes in the form of the bar/restaurant that now lives inside it – as a Marriott operation you’re allowed to have some expectations when t comes to the food and these guys certainly deliver (though not, perhaps, at the level of insanity you may find at JW Steakhouse on Park Lane or Gillray’s in County Hall. Food is, on the main part, rather British with a few modern European touches – think an all day menu with Fish Finger Sandwiches, Toad in the Hole, Shepard’s Pie, Black Angus Beef Burgers, etc. Keeping with the British theme, they also serve the traditional afternoon tea in the adjacent (and for some reason very fragrant) Hansom Lounge.
We were there partly for The Renaissance’s ‘punch ritual’. What I forgot to mention is that the other big theme here is the Victorian era (heck, they’re halfway there with