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Official Placelist · London · 12 places
Square Mile weeknights: City restaurants and wine bars
Serious dinners, proper wine bars and old City pubs worth staying out for on a weeknight.
Twelve places in and around the City of London worth staying out for on a weeknight: serious restaurants like Ibai, Cloth and Coq d'Argent, wine bars such as Dave's and Humble Grape in the St Mary-le-Bow crypt, and old pubs like the Jamaica Wine House. Most are a short walk from Bank, St Paul's, Barbican or Farringdon, and most take bookings. Add where everyone is finishing work and FairWhere ranks the list so nobody gets the long trip home.
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Twelve places in and around the City of London worth staying out for on a weeknight: serious restaurants like Ibai, Cloth and Coq d'Argent, wine bars such as Dave's and Humble Grape in the St Mary-le-Bow crypt, and old pubs like the Jamaica Wine House. Most are a short walk from Bank, St Paul's, Barbican or Farringdon, and most take bookings. Add where everyone is finishing work and FairWhere ranks the list so nobody gets the long trip home.
Twelve places in and around the City of London worth staying out for on a weeknight: serious restaurants like Ibai, Cloth and Coq d'Argent, wine bars such as Dave's and Humble Grape in the St Mary-le-Bow crypt, and old pubs like the Jamaica Wine House. Most are a short walk from Bank, St Paul's, Barbican or Farringdon, and most take bookings. Add where everyone is finishing work and FairWhere ranks the list so nobody gets the long trip home.
Some of them hide behind Upper Thames Street and only make sense once you are on the terrace with the river in your face. Others are old gin-palace pubs that do toasties better than half the restaurants do a main. A few are the sort of openings that make you cancel the next morning's 8am without quite meaning to.
This list is for groups finishing from different bits of London who are done pretending Bank is a compromise. Pick the shortlist, add where everyone is starting, and let the journeys decide who actually got the fair deal.
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Next for Bouchon Racine
Photo: Paul The Archivist / CC BY-SA 2.0
French upstairs on Cowcross
Bouchon Racine
Farringdon
Bouchon Racine sits above the Farringdon churn like a French dining room that wandered into Smithfield and decided to stay. The upstairs room is intimate, candlelit, a little conspiratorial: the sort of place where coats pile up and conversations drop to a murmur over red wine. It feels like dinner rather than content. Classic bistro cooking arrives with confidence and very little irony: sauces that cling, bread that matters, plates that want a second bottle. Weeknights are when it shines for City people who still have to be somewhere in the morning and refuse to eat as if that should ruin them. Come hungry, leave slightly delayed, and accept that Cowcross Street just earned another loyalist. Practical: Book early; Farringdon is on the doorstep; better for two to four than a sprawling group.
Nearest: Farringdon
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Frequently asked questions
- What is Serious Square Mile weeknights?
- Serious Square Mile weeknights is a curated FairWhere Placelist of London venues. FairWhere ranks them by journey fairness for your group so you can agree where to meet without guessing the midpoint.
- How does FairWhere rank places on Serious Square Mile weeknights?
- FairWhere ranks venues on this Placelist by FairWhere Score: journey fairness for your whole group, not by popularity, sponsorship, or who suggested the place first. Open Plan a fair meet to add origins and see the ranked shortlist.
- Do I need everyone in the same area of London?
- No. FairWhere is built for groups coming from different zones. Add each person's start location and it ranks venues so the travel burden is as fair as possible across the group.
- Is this free to use?
- Browsing Placelists and creating a basic plan with estimate-only ranking is free in the London beta. Optional live checks and deeper routing may use credits where offered.
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