Davy's Bar & Grill (Bunghole)

The following is a guest post by @yesiamben

I'm not sure whether having an awesome name like Davy's Bunghole is a plus or a minus when it comes to choosing a place to eat. I mean It's pretty funny - but only if you have a fairly base sense of humour. I do. Which makes it A-OK with me. That said, they're now calling themselves 'Davy's Bar and Grill, Holborn (formerly the Bunghole)', so either someone lacks a sense of humour, or someone has realised that not everyone wants to eat out of a Bunghole [cue maniacal Beavis and Butthead style laughter]. 

Anyway, Davy's is a short walk from Holborn tube. The restaurant part, the Bunghole, is below a pretty great looking little pub - the kind of place that has that traditional pub feel - lots of wood and yellow lights. It also smelled really good - sort of a mix of whisky and beer. Boozy, basically. You'll find the Bunghole down a flight of steps at the back of the pub - which you can also access from the alley down the side of the building.

The Bunghole kind of shares the same feeling as upstairs - perhaps with a little less of the warm cocoon feeling. It was a little empty - I suspect because it was midweek - but even with that taken into account the atmosphere didn't feel quite right. That said, the guy who seated us was probably the most smiley, nice man alive. 

The table and restaurant decor doesn't seem to fit the pub. White napkins, white tablecloth (dirty, irritatingly), big silver cutlery etc. We ordered two burgers - one with bacon, one without, both with cheese, both came with chips.

The buns were glazed and a little toasted. The patties sat atop a little bit of salad, a slight of tomato and some red onion rings. On top of the burger itself was some cheese - a lightish cheddar if I remember correctly, and on one a couple of slices of bacon. The bacon was very 'English', if that makes sense - the kind of thing you'd expect in a fried breakfast. The burger was accompanied by a tomatoey relish that probably wasn't sweet enough (certainly for me). The fries were good but nothing special - light (perhaps a touch anaemic), but not over or undercooked.

The burger itself was, well, interesting. Not bad, by any means - but certainly there was a definitive patty 'mix'. So bits of greenery - chive maybe and some seasoning. It tasted pretty good, but if I had to complain, it'd be the almost over-charcoaled flavour - like the patty had been cooked super quickly, so tasted almost burnt - but interestingly that wasn't reflected inside. The meat was also very light in colour. Go figure.

Reading back the last two paragraphs is probably enough to put anyone off. I kinda hope not. The place isn't actually bad - as a pub, it'd be a great place to drink and the service was fantastic. The meal was by no means bad - it just wasn't, well, amazing. If you're nearby and hungry, you could do a lot worse. You could also do a lot better - I mean there's better burgers nearby if you can walk (and get in elsewhere). It probably also doesn't help that I ate at Bread Street Kitchen the next day - comparing the two doesn't even seem fair.

[They get all their meat from Donald Russell and use a somewhat strange choice of 100% Onglet for the patty. -CBB]

Davy's
57 High Holborn 
WC1V 6DT 
0207 831 8365