Headed to London tomorrow to meet up with an old uni mate. Staying over in Holborn. Neither of us are local so need some recommendations on somewhere decent for food and a few beers afterwards in the local (less than 10 mins in a taxi) area.

Cheers in advance

Anyway where but Holborn 😆

yeah i would agree the bars around holborn/covent garden are not the best. Whilst I 'm sure there are many better pubs if you head east commercial street/brick lane/hoxton area you'll have a good enough time, it's full of yuppies but also full of bars and food.

In Holborn I'd recommend 32 Great Queen Street (yes the address is the name of the place) for good food. There's a nice bar with a great barman in the basement there too for a few pre/post dinner drinks.

Go to ''old explorer'' behind h&m in oxford circus

You might want to check out The Lowlander, which is toward the Holborn side of Covent Garden.

It's a nice laidback bar specialising in Belgian beers, bit pricey for some, but you'll get very drunk on them.

Food good too.

is a polish bar( Na Zdrowie on little turnstile)behind holborn station which is great for vodka and a sausage. you could get very drunk there. a few decent pubs around there also.
you aren't far from covent garden and can recommed a place called wahaca on chandos place which does mexican st food. loads of tacos and enchilladas etc,have a negra modelo beer if you go. great food and pretty cheap for the area.
otherwise head east to check out the hipsters in shoreditch/bethnal green.
Bikefix on lambs conduit st for some interesting bikes during the day or brick lane bikes if you want a fixed wheel frenzy.

+ For the Lowlander. Nice spot.
Covent Garden is a better place than Holborn, to be honest. If you like French, try Mon Plaisir at Seven Dials.
Also in Covent Garden, the Lamb is a great little (genuine!) boozer.

I used to avoid c garden and c london like the plague on nights out, but have since returned as in these recessionary times its less full of t*ssers, many of whom now go out in hackey area to be trendy. C London is also more full of people actually from london born and bred (any colour of course, I'm not endorsing nick g) nowadays on a nite out, so you won't just be surrounded by loads of annoying northerners (who only talk about how great the north is, although im sure they probably only talk about how great london is when they go back to gloat infront of family and friends). Edit – I actually like northeners when I meet the ones up north,just not keen on the ones down here.
Anyway, rant over, check out a turkish place Tas in Bloomsbury; also the Sam Smith pubs to keep it real with the bank manager.

+1 for Sam Smith pubs! Reminds me, go to the Citie Of Yorke (On Holborn). A stunning interior to a pub, a really lovely place for a beer.

(Never been impressed by Tas, sorry! There are many better Lebanese/Eastern Med places around that part of town, but names escape me at the mo! Look for the one full of people who look like they come from the Eastern Med, always best! Same applies to China Town, but look for Chinese people, of course!)

polish bar!! (behind holborn station)

If you're after Belgian stuff and the lowlander is full, head towards Holborn tube from there and go to Belgos. The one on Kingsway is less busy than the Covent Garden one.

For plenty of beer choice, there's also the Porterhouse in Covent Garden but it will be RAMMED.

atlaz, I was at Belgo in CG recently. It's gone downhill. Badly. Don't know about the one on Kingsway, though.

Porterhouse is the messiest, worst designed pub in history, best avoided IMP.

+2 Samuel Smiths – Princess Louise by Holborn Tube, a unique pub.

wander down towards chancery ln and go to The Griffin.

Another vote for the Sam Smith's pubs above – the Princess Louise is a *particularly* good example of Victorian tilework, and they've more recently reinstated glass/timberwork screens as they would have been when it was built.

Have a look on http://www.fancyapint.com too – you can look up pubs by rating/station/tube/name/area – and it's got objective reviews (unlike beerintheevening.com, which has customer submitted reviews which are are bit unreliable)

Holbon is more Mon-Fri
15 min walk to Covent Garden
Pubs, Wine bars and good food