East of the British Museum and 2 blocks from the Charles Dickens Museum, behind an old storefront amid the transporting upscale boutiques of Lamb’s Conduit Street, spend a languid meal sampling spectacularly well-chosen wines, cheeses, and sublimely fine slices of Spanish hams. There are also a few changing British-drawn dishes like gnocchi with wild garlic, baked Scottish cod, and Middlewhite pork chops. It’s perplexing how such hunting lodge chic simplicity can yield such a delightful few hours and make you wish you lived like this every day—the experience has proved so lovely that Noble Rot even supports its own food-and-lifestyle magazine.

Once it got popular, it also opened locations in Soho at 2 Greek St., W1 (020/7183-8190; Tube: Tottenham Court Road) and in Mayfair (5 Trebeck St., W1; 020/7101-6770; Tube: Green Park). Check the menu for that only-in-Britain freshness warning about some of the meat selections: “Game may contain shot.”