Joe Allen Restaurant

A classic American restaurant based in the heart of London's busy Covent Garden, Joe Allen has been serving the best in authentic American food since 1977.

Joe Allen | American Restaurant In Covent Garden, London

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http://www.joeallen.co.uk

Joe Allen Restaurant - Covent Garden - Covent Garden London ...

Don't worry none its laid back charm or fabulous food has bee lost only enhanced with exciting new dishes to the menu to celebrate the move.

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Joe Allen, London WC2, restaurant review: The song remains the ...

My first burger was a large cheeseburger, consumed circa 1969 at a fabulously on-point joint in Kensington Church Street, London W8; a treat tied in with something my mother was doing: visiting her hairdresser in Kensington High Street, possibly, or trying on Tt-shirt dresses in Biba a few doors down the road, while I sat impatiently, yearning to grow up, watching skinny Sixties It-chicks smearing themselves in plum lipglosslip-gloss and sparkly eyeshadows at the free-for-all (literally, I suspect) make-up counter.

With its postered walls, wonky wooden tables and trendy bentwood chairs, “The Home of the Heavenly Hamburger” had a chocolate -brownie-coloured pop-art-nouveau aesthetic similar to Biba’s.

Sucking up stylistic influences, I was instantaneously sold on Brit hippy-chic and faux Americana – and the burgers (and chips) were magnificent.

I never made it to the very first British McDonalds – 1974, in Woolwich, cost of a Big Mac 43p – however I was an early and enthusiastic adopter of the import’s Haymarket and Edgware Road branches.

And then, in 1977, just as I hit my teens, something seismic occurred, burger-rwise: the arrival of a proper American restaurant in Covent Garden, an offshoot of New York’s own Joe Allen, which had been serving steak and cheesecake to pre-and post-theatre dinner crowds in its atmospheric theatre-poster bedecked, bare brick-walled room on West 46th Sttreet since 1965.

Classics Revisited: Joe Allen

Everyone who eats out in London has a Joe Allen story to tell; the Covent Garden restaurant is up there with The Mousetrap as one of Theatreland’s longest-running productions.

and end with at least one of the table involved in an over-tired dark night of the soul.

My all-time favourite Joe Allen story however is when a table of dapper gents in eveningwear gave us some spare tickets to the Olivier awards at the Royal Opera House, insisting that black-tie was optional.

Alas, the look on Helen Mirren’s face as we sauntered up the red carpet in shirtsleeves and jeans, posing for the paps, told a different story, although she may have been more forgiving of our sartorial faux pas had she known that we’d been boozily brunching in what has always been the unofficial canteen for hungry luvvies.

Joe Allen Restaurant (2 Burleigh Street, London WC2E) | The List

Joe Allen Restaurant, 2 Burleigh Street, Covent Garden, London ...

Joe Allen restaurant review 2011 April London | American Cuisine ...

Well, the dining area is poorly lit (which is very New York), but by peering into the gloom it was possible to make out some menu choices.

Also perfectly decent was a chili con carne (what was the last time you saw this on a restaurant menu?)

with rice and sour cream, the mince decent and the spice balance about right (13/20).

A lobster roll (£16.50) was OK in itself but served with truly awful matchstick chips that were dismally soggy (10/20 given the chips).

London dining has moved on in the last twenty years but Joe Allen has not.

Joe Allen, London WC2, restaurant review: The song remains the ...

My first burger was a large cheeseburger, consumed circa 1969 at a fabulously on-point joint in Kensington Church Street, London W8; a treat tied in with something my mother was doing: visiting her hairdresser in Kensington High Street, possibly, or trying on Tt-shirt dresses in Biba a few doors down the road, while I sat impatiently, yearning to grow up, watching skinny Sixties It-chicks smearing themselves in plum lipglosslip-gloss and sparkly eyeshadows at the free-for-all (literally, I suspect) make-up counter.

With its postered walls, wonky wooden tables and trendy bentwood chairs, “The Home of the Heavenly Hamburger” had a chocolate -brownie-coloured pop-art-nouveau aesthetic similar to Biba’s.

Sucking up stylistic influences, I was instantaneously sold on Brit hippy-chic and faux Americana – and the burgers (and chips) were magnificent.

I never made it to the very first British McDonalds – 1974, in Woolwich, cost of a Big Mac 43p – however I was an early and enthusiastic adopter of the import’s Haymarket and Edgware Road branches.

And then, in 1977, just as I hit my teens, something seismic occurred, burger-rwise: the arrival of a proper American restaurant in Covent Garden, an offshoot of New York’s own Joe Allen, which had been serving steak and cheesecake to pre-and post-theatre dinner crowds in its atmospheric theatre-poster bedecked, bare brick-walled room on West 46th Sttreet since 1965.

Classics Revisited: Joe Allen

Everyone who eats out in London has a Joe Allen story to tell; the Covent Garden restaurant is up there with The Mousetrap as one of Theatreland’s longest-running productions.

and end with at least one of the table involved in an over-tired dark night of the soul.

My all-time favourite Joe Allen story however is when a table of dapper gents in eveningwear gave us some spare tickets to the Olivier awards at the Royal Opera House, insisting that black-tie was optional.

Alas, the look on Helen Mirren’s face as we sauntered up the red carpet in shirtsleeves and jeans, posing for the paps, told a different story, although she may have been more forgiving of our sartorial faux pas had she known that we’d been boozily brunching in what has always been the unofficial canteen for hungry luvvies.