The Audley

The Audley proves Mayfair still has room for an actual pub, not just a pub-shaped restaurant — a Grade II-listed corner building from 1888 that hasn’t been designed into submission by the addresses around it. Mount Street is lined with restaurants that treat “pub” as a design brief to be interpreted loosely; this one is the genuine article, with a proper dining room bolted on above it rather than the other way round.

That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should, because it changes what the room is for — you can walk in for a pint and a sandwich without ceremony, which is not something you can say for most of its neighbours.

The Room

A traditional ground-floor pub bar, with a more considered dining room upstairs — Mount St. — for when the mood calls for a proper sitting. Downstairs keeps the bones of the original building: a proper bar to lean on, regulars who clearly aren’t tourists, and none of the self-consciousness that a lot of “historic” London pubs perform for visitors.

Upstairs is a different register entirely — tablecloths, a slower pace, a menu that takes itself more seriously without losing the pub’s underlying sense of humour. The two rooms don’t pretend to be the same restaurant, and that’s the right call — treat them as two different kinds of dining rather than one venue with an upstairs annexe.

What to Order

Downstairs: the fish finger sandwich with tartare sauce is the dish people specifically come back for, built properly rather than as an ironic nod to nursery food, alongside Cornish haddock and chips with mushy peas if you want the fuller version of the same idea. Upstairs, the Durslade Farm shepherd’s pie is the kitchen’s more considered signature — proper long-cooked lamb, a crust that’s been given actual attention rather than an afterthought.

The Drinks List

A solid pub selection downstairs — nothing showy, just well-kept beer and a serviceable house wine — and a more considered wine list once you go up, chosen to match the heavier, slower food rather than to impress on its own account. The upstairs list in particular rewards a second look; it’s easy to assume a pub-attached dining room won’t bother with a serious cellar, and the staff here are visibly pleased to prove that assumption wrong when asked.

What You Will Pay

Downstairs, around £25–35 per person gets you a genuinely satisfying pub lunch without feeling like you’ve paid a Mayfair premium for it. Upstairs, closer to £55–75 buys the fuller sitting, and it’s fair value for the postcode — you’re not paying for the address so much as for a kitchen that’s clearly not coasting on it.

It’s worth noting how rarely that combination shows up on Mount Street specifically: most of the addresses around it are priced for the street rather than for what’s actually on the plate, and The Audley’s downstairs menu in particular is a genuine outlier in that respect.

The Verdict

Downstairs for a proper pub lunch between Mount Street errands; upstairs when you want the same address with more ceremony. Don’t feel obligated to book upstairs on your first visit — the fish finger sandwich at the bar is a complete answer to what this pub is for, and it’s a better introduction to the building than jumping straight to the more formal dining room.

What’s Being Said

A genuine pub on one of London’s most expensive streets is rarer than it should be — this one hasn’t tried to become something else. Most of Mount Street has drifted toward a single, glossier register over the years; The Audley is the reminder that the street used to have room for something plainer, and that plainer isn’t the same as worse.

Whether that balance survives the next round of Mayfair rent increases is an open question, but for now it’s one of the few addresses on the street where the building’s own history still visibly outweighs the surrounding real estate pressure. That’s the case this review is making, and it’s also roughly what the 4-star mark above is meant to signal: a genuinely good pub that happens to sit on an exceptional street, rather than the other way round.

Call it a rating for restraint as much as for the cooking: a pub that hasn’t chased the surrounding real-estate pressure into becoming something it isn’t.