The story
The Barley Mow, at 82 Duke Street in Mayfair, London, pairs a traditional pub bar with a British and French kitchen upstairs. The Good Food Guide lists it as Good for 2026, and the first-floor restaurant is where most of the cooking happens.
Head chef Chris Fordham-Smith serves what the restaurant describes as a decadent French take on British classics. The Good Food Guide calls the cooking high-impact and straightforward, with native-breed beef pie served with mash and parsley sauce. A free-range roast chicken comes with sage and truffle butter. AA Rosettes has given the restaurant one Rosette for culinary excellence in 2026.
Desserts stay classic, with sticky toffee pudding and salted caramel sauce, and a baked Alaska made for two. The ground floor bar suits after-work drinks and bar snacks, with a full-length counter and live music every Wednesday and Thursday.
Recognition
Ambience
Details
History
From the Cubitt House group, this transformed Mayfair pub comes across as a genuine local, refreshingly free of affectation and resolutely faithful to its pub roots. The impressive ground-floor bar has held on to its darkly varnished wood and etched glass, packing in drinkers for pints of proper beer and a bar menu offering the likes of hot meat buns or sausage rolls with homemade brown sauce. However, the real action takes place upstairs in an intimate, richly decorated dining room. Here chef director Ben Tish and head chef Chris Fordham-Smith's influences are to be seen, their talents and food-loving instincts delivering high-impact, no-nonsense British cooking. It’s a clear-sighted, thoughtful approach that pays dividends all round, from starters of steamed cockles (with parsley butter), a house terrine en croûte or brown crab rarebit to desserts such as baked Alaska (for two) and sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel sauce. In between, the kitchen applies a respectful approach to top-drawer ingredients: native-breed beef pie with mash and parsley sauce; an exemplary free-range roast chicken, served with sage and truffle butter; a daily roast of rare-breed meats (the real deal). There’s an inspired cheese selection too, and wine is taken seriously – expect a thoughtful selection that accommodates all depths of pocket.
Location
Instagram