Keith McNally's Russell Street brasserie, the SoHo Manhattan original transposed to Covent Garden, twelve years in.
Balthazar opened on Russell Street in 2013 as Keith McNally's London transplant of his 1997 Spring Street original, and against the usual import-failure odds the room has held. The brasserie register is intact: zinc bar, brass rails, antiqued mirrors, the bread basket from the in-house Balthazar Boulangerie next door, steak frites, plateau de fruits de mer, the burger that ran the McNally Manhattan room for two decades. Pre-theatre crowds at six, family Sunday lunches, late industry tables after the Royal Opera House. Not a destination kitchen, a destination room.
Book the back banquette section, not the window-line bistro tables which sit on the door. Weekend brunch from 09:00 books up by Wednesday, the eggs benedict and the steak haché are the orders. The Balthazar Boulangerie next door takes walk-ins for the bread and the kouign-amann.
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Historic Monuments, Street Scene
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