Review: Pivot, Covent Garden

It’s always useful to know about good casual dining options near Covent Garden. So we stopped in post-ROH for a meal at Pivot early Sunday evening. Maybe we didn’t catch them at their best?

The decor is “down-at-heel central London pub with unironic UK pop culture wall art for tourists” which may be very deliberate or very lazy, I couldn’t decide. It was also really quiet, which was both surprising and also, to be fair, did no favours to the atmosphere. We’d also picked a Sunday evening, which meant the Sunday lunch menu of three starters, four roasts and a couple of puds.

The starters were… white bean soup, smoked salmon or chicken terrine. This is my problem, really: none of these are things I would normally ever order. We are in way down in retro land. I picked the soup and it was good, garlicky, hidden bits of cauli, not too creamy. Maureen had the terrine and it was inoffensive, nice piccalilli, tiny bit of white baguette. Whether the pared-back 70’s London dining aesthetic is intentional or not, it’s just going a bit far.

My roast cod was an impressive slab of fish, well cooked. The warm tartare sauce was kinda weak stuff with the consistency of a thin beurre blanc. Extra crispy roast potatoes I liked a lot. The Yorkshire pudding was quite darkly brown and yet still stodgy within, it was perfectly okay but not a great specimen. Maureen’s beef was also very well cooked and a decent piece of meat. Cabbage, beans and carrots were good accompaniments.

We didn’t stay for dessert – chocolate mousse, poached pear or ice cream weren’t reason enough. The two course Sunday roast is £32, three courses £38. That’s a pretty decent price for Covent Garden. But I’ll happily stretch a few quid more to actually enjoy my dining out! For me, the cooking at Pivot is fine but they’ve aimed for “comfort classics” and ended up just choosing some really boring ones.