The Devonshire
Ashley Palmer-Watts spent twenty years in the Fat Duck Group and now runs a wood ember grill on Denman Street, a fuel he says is
far more challenging to cook usingthan charcoal (Hot Dinners, Restaurant Online).
Why go
Three people opened it in November 2023: Rogers from the Guinea Grill and The Ship in Wandsworth, Carroll who founded Flat Iron, and Palmer-Watts out of Heston Blumenthal's kitchens (Restaurant Online). The building runs as two things at once. Downstairs is a pub with bar food from the in-house butcher and bakery, upstairs is a dining room over the ember grill, cooking Scottish beef, langoustines, lobster and hand-dived scallops (The Devonshire). Wood embers are the harder fuel because the fire has to be burned down to coals before anything goes on, and the heat keeps moving, so the grill cook is managing a decaying fire rather than a set temperature. Judges have paid attention: number one in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs for 2026, and Gastropub of the Year at the National Restaurant Awards in 2024, 2025 and 2026 (Time Out, National Restaurant Awards).
Order this / avoid
- Order: a pint of Guinness downstairs, then hand-dived scallops off the grill, which Hot Dinners called
just a beautiful combo of flavours,
and the chocolate mousse thatwill ruin all other chocolate mousses for you
(Hot Dinners). - Avoid: a vegan dinner. The venue states it has
very little that is fully vegan,
though vegetarians are catered for (The Devonshire).
What locals & experts say
- Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs 2026: first in the UK, announced 26 January 2026, with the guide calling it a
roaring success
thatserves up premium quality, homemade food, focusing on the best of British produce.
3 - National Restaurant Awards:
Gastropub of the Year 2024, 2025 & 2026
plusOpening of the Year 2024,
and 18th in its Top 50.2 - Hot Dinners:
the Guinness here is among the very best in London and will only get better.
5 - Time Out (2026): the ground-floor pub
serves what's widely regarded as London's best Guinness.
3
Good to know
- Timing: pub Monday to Saturday 11am to 11pm and Sunday 11am to 10pm; kitchen takes its last sitting at 10pm, 9pm on Sunday (The Devonshire).
- Booking: a la carte tables are released every Thursday at 10.30am, three weeks out. The pub takes no bookings, so arrive early or stand. Four private rooms hold up to 60.
- Dietary: the venue's own line is that there are "a number of delicious vegetarian dishes" but "very little that is fully vegan." No gluten-free or allergen policy is published.
- Getting there: 17 Denman Street, a minute from Piccadilly Circus.
Craft signals (dispense and fire, held steady on purpose)
No evolution: value is recorded here. What this pub is famous for is not a list that moves but two disciplines held to an unusual standard: the Guinness, poured and cellared with a fuss almost nowhere else applies, and the live-fire chophouse cooking upstairs. Both are arguments for consistency rather than rotation, and the awards record it carries is a verdict on execution rather than on novelty. Recording it as static would say the wrong thing about a room whose whole claim is that the same pint and the same chop arrive right every time; recording it as rotating would be false. The field stays off and the craft case is the pour and the fire.
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: Best new restaurant award 2023 palate
Verdict
must-visit — Number one in the Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs for 2026 and Gastropub of the Year at the National Restaurant Awards three years running, from a partnership of the Guinea Grill's Oisín Rogers, Flat Iron's Charlie Carroll and Ashley Palmer-Watts after twenty years in the Fat Duck Group. Upstairs is a wood ember grill working hand-dived scallops and Scottish beef butchered on site; downstairs is the Guinness Time Out calls widely regarded as London's best. The combination of a serious live-fire kitchen and a genuine pub in the same building is the thing you cannot get elsewhere.