The Guinea Grill
On the way to your table you walk past a fridge of dry-aged beef and pick the cut you are about to eat, which is the whole argument for a room that has not changed much since 1952.
Why go
An inn has stood on this bit of Bruton Place since 1423 and the grill behind the pub opened in 1952, since when it has cooked dry-aged, grass-fed British beef over an open fire (The Guinea). It is a Young's house, so there is cask at the bar and a cellar picked by a sommelier, and service in the dining room is still silver service with a doorman in a top hat at the door (National Restaurant Awards). The pie is the other reason people come: steak, kidney and mushroom under a suet lid, made with the same beef as the steaks. Londonist calls the kitchen a nationwide steak pie champion three times over, though no source will name the awarding body or the years.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the steak and kidney pie, on its doily, with a spoon heavy enough to be an heirloom. The sirloin off the grill, fat cap on. Cauliflower cheese, which one reviewer would give up the rest of a roast for. The potato and Wensleydale pie, where the poached egg becomes the sauce.
- Avoid: arriving vegan, because there is nothing here for you. Bringing a child under twelve or a pushchair, since neither is allowed. Splitting the honey glazed carrots, which arrive as one person's portion.
What locals & experts say
- Thomas Stock, co-founder of Burger & Beyond, asked on TOPJAW for his best bar or pub in London:
Guinea Grill. Still my favourite Guinness in London.
3 - Sinéad Cranna for The Infatuation, scoring 8.2: the staff, the portraits
and the lack of iPhones on tables make for a transportive rather than tiresome experience. And the food is very good.
Her warning in the same piece:Just know that veganism hasn't reached The Guinea Grill yet. Low cholesterol and restraint are also foreign concepts.
2 - Joanne Gould for Londonist, on the pie:
a proudly old fashioned steak, kidney and mushroom suet number, dressed in the frilly collar it presumably had when they started serving it. As nationwide steak pie champions three times over, this is a properly meaty pudding of a pie.
4
Good to know
- Where: 30 Bruton Place, a Mayfair mews a short walk from Green Park, Bond Street and Oxford Circus.
- The layout: the public bar at the front, the meat counter between, the silver-service dining room behind.
- Booking: recommended for the restaurant. The bar takes you as you come.
- House rules: no one under twelve, and no pushchairs or prams.
- Private dining: rooms for up to twenty.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, inspected 26 February 2025, with all three components clean. The register holds the premises under its pub name, The Guinea Public House.6
Verdict
should-visit — You walk past the meat fridge on the way to your table, which tells you what the room is for before anyone says a word. The grill has been going since 1952, the beef is dry-aged and grass-fed, and the pie comes under a suet lid made with the same beef as the steaks. Londonist calls it a nationwide steak pie champion three times over, though nobody will say which body or which years, so that stays a quote rather than an award. Sinead Cranna scored it 8.2 in 2025 and wrote the sentence that decides it: the room has big eye-roll potential, and the food is very good anyway. Thomas Stock of Burger & Beyond names the Guinness here as his favourite in London, which is the independent version of a claim the pub makes about itself. It sits at should-visit rather than higher because the top price band buys you a period piece doing classics beautifully rather than a kitchen doing anything new, and because no national critic has weighed in.