This is a real ale pub I have been intending to visit for some time. Yesterday Angus Corie and myself went there after work and tried the beer and food.
The Holborn whippet is certainly a good place for beer. There’s generally at least 5 beers on and some ciders, interesting keg beers and lagers. It’s a very busy pub, particularly at about 6 in the evening when it gets full of people leaving work. despite this, we were served quickly and the bar staff were really very helpful when it came to finding us a table and telling us about the beer and the food. Pints generally cost from between £3.40 and £3.70 which is very reasonable for central London. All the pints were kept well and on the beer front I have no complaints at all. I’d highly recommend trying out this pub, though keep in mind that it gets extremely busy after work during the week.
I was not so impressed by the food. I had a steak sandwich with fries. The fries were cheap frozen things like cardboard which were hollow and generally not particularly satisfying. The steak sandwich I had was a good size but the steak itself was rather tough and a bit tasteless. My friend was not over impressed with the burger and the range of pizzas was very limited. Corie had a pepperoni pizza which was of decent quality though a bit soggy in the middle. It had plenty of jalapeno chillies on it which suited me but apart from burgers and steak sandwiches, there were only 3 pizzas on offer.
The burgers cost £7.50 with fries with a steak sandwich costing £8. For that I would have expected a little better quality and a little more choice. I wouldn’t really go to this pub for the food, I’d go for the ale. I think a better option might be to sell basic sandwiches and maybe cold pies rather than the very limited range of hot food currently on offer.
We went to this pub hoping for good beer and decent food. I think it would work if the pub really concentrated on the beer rather than giving the limited food such prominence. On that basis I give this pub 6.5 out of 10. I like the fact that they keep people up to date with new beers on twitter and that the staff were really friendly. By just serving cold but good quality sandwiches and pies, I think the pub would be more honest and I would give it an 8 out of 10.
Visit the website at http://holbornwhippet.wordpress.com/
Graham Page
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