New on Wine List Confidential: Andrew Edmunds

Old-school and remarkable value, Andrew Edmunds offers a list that will perk up even the most jaded palate, revealing an abundance of serious producers and iconic vineyards with fair mark-ups and a good few years of age under their belt.

Lit, largely, by candles jammed into the necks of spent Burgundy bottles, this cosy (some might say cramped) bastion of old Soho, which has about it a slight air of debauchery, is often described as London’s most romantic restaurant. Beyond and below the matt black shopfront, the restaurant has been trading for over three decades, while the print shop adjacent, featuring prints by William Hogarth, Daumier and Mesquita which continue onto the walls of the dining room, opened in 1975.

Driven by classic European regions with a window too onto the prime New World, the wine list features plentiful rested bottles including a good selection in magnums and half sized bottles. If on a budget, note the sweet spot between £30-40 per bottle, where you may encounter venerable Mosel Rieslings with decades of enriching bottle age from S.A. Prüm, Loire reds (such as the Bourgueil from fourteenth century producer, Domaine de la Chevalerie), Margaret River Cabernet (Arlewood) from vines beside the Indian Ocean, and wild Chilean Carignan (Vinedo Silvestre). And at the top end, discover ripe for uncorking, Ridge Monte Bello, plentiful St. Juliens and juicy Burgundies – burdened very little by low mark-ups.

Dishes on the charmingly handwritten daily menu, which are also available upstairs in The Academy members’ club on the first floor, are very good, and may include chestnut soup, then turbot, celery and celeriac, followed by hazelnut ice cream, perhaps with a glass of Don PX Dulce de Postre upended in its entirety over the top.

To see the WLC position and scores for this review click here.

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Restaurants are graded on a 100-point scale based on five criteria: size, value, service, range and originality. For a full guide to London’s best wine lists visit winelistconfidential.com