The Megaro.

The Megaro

Spagnoletti makes its pasta daily under a lattice of yellow industrial piping, and the bar two floors below washes its bourbon in beef tallow.2

Why go

Hokus Pokus is the room worth the walk down Belgrove Street. James Morrison opened the British College of Health on this street in 1828 and sold botanical compounds as a cure for everything, and the bar took the botany and left the promises: the team makes no claims of health benefits, but ingredients are distilled, infused, pickled or smoked in-house, with no off-the-shelf mixes.3 That means house strawberry wine, beef tallow-washed bourbon, chilli-infused tequila, barrel-aged vermouth and mandarin cordials, all off the bar's own bench. The counter is built from a deconstructed apothecary shop, and the same production goes into the alcohol-free drinks.

Spagnoletti runs the ground floor all day, from early coffee to late plates, and it makes its own pasta every day and takes its bread from the hotel bakery.2 Harden's diners rate the food Good and the service Very Good at about £66 a head, and they are specific about which plates earn it: the pasta dishes in particular are very good (proper Italian), and beef shin risotto, arrancini and the black pudding croquettes are excellent.4 Henry Chebaane designed both rooms, which is why the restaurant is yellow pipework and white tiles and the bar is copper, valves and dynamos.

The kitchen's leadership is the loose thread. The Caterer and Restaurant both reported Adam Simmonds arriving as chef patron in 2024, Harden's survey text calls him a consultant who joined that summer, his own restaurant in this building closed in August 2025 less than a year after opening, and the hotel's 2026 pages name no chef at all.6

Order this / avoid

• Order: pasta, which is the thing the survey backs by name, and the bread that comes from the bakery downstairs.
• Order: the beef shin risotto, the arancini or the black pudding croquettes, the three plates Harden's reporters call excellent.4
• Order: whatever the bar has aged or washed itself. Ask what came off the lab bench this month.
• Avoid: eating here with a train to catch. The restaurant says so itself: If you need to be on a train in 20 minutes, there are faster options nearby.2
• Avoid: it altogether if the decor matters to you. "The odd 70s decor will not be to everyone's taste."

What locals & experts say

• Harden's survey reporters, in the latest year, on the surprise: the Italian food is surprisingly good and staff are super-helpful and on-point, in a room that sits inside the multi-coloured Megaro Hotel, bang opposite St Pancras station.4
• The same survey, unsmoothed: "hello, what looks like Meccano and some random ornaments", and from an earlier year, "The location is not the best - immediately off a busy pavement and bordering the trafficky Euston Road."
• No bylined critic has reviewed either room in any source this project accepts, so the survey is the whole independent record.

Good to know

• Where: the hotel is 1 Belgrove Street WC1H 8AB, two minutes from King's Cross and St Pancras. Harden's files the restaurant at 23 Euston Road NW1 2SD, which is the same corner building.
• The name: Charles Spagnoletti was the 19th-century Anglo-Italian engineer who developed railway signalling, which is a fair thing to name a restaurant opposite St Pancras after.4
• You do not have to be a guest. The restaurant states that plainly, and the bar takes outside bookings too.
• Groups: a mezzanine seats up to 30 semi-privately, a private room takes 12, and there is a table cut from timber salvaged from HMS Victory.2
• Voyage is gone. Adam Simmonds' own restaurant in this hotel closed in August 2025. Spagnoletti and Hokus Pokus carry on.
• Hours: not published in a form that could be read for this entry. The restaurant runs breakfast through dinner; the bar is an evening room.

Verdict

could-visit — The reason to walk into this hotel is the basement. Hokus Pokus distils, infuses, pickles and smokes its own ingredients and buys no mixes, and the list it builds from that runs beef tallow-washed bourbon, barrel-aged vermouth, chilli-infused tequila and its own strawberry wine, with the alcohol-free drinks made to the same standard. The idea comes from James Morrison, who opened the British College of Health on Belgrove Street in 1828 and sold botanical pills as a cure for everything; the bar sells the botanicals and skips the claims. Upstairs, Spagnoletti makes pasta daily and bakes its own bread, and Harden's diners are specific about it, calling the pasta 'proper Italian' and naming the beef shin risotto and black pudding croquettes. They are equally specific about the room, which one reporter describes as Meccano and random ornaments. It sits at could-visit because the food scores Good rather than better, nobody bylined has reviewed either room, and it is two minutes from a station, which is most of why anybody ends up here.