One of visitlondon.com's Top Tips covers Outdoor Dining:

"St Christopher's Place in the West End is for more than just shopping - it also offers one of the largest concentrations of cosmopolitan pavement dining in London. These stylish cafes offer a range of options to suit every tast - from French to Thai and pizzerias to pubs"

Well i have missed St Chris Place in my annual visits to London and will have to look it up - is it really a Latin Quarter like it sounds - or full of plastic places as i suspect?

http://www.stchristophersplace.com/ThePlace.asp

the st chris place site says it's opposite the Bond Street Tube Stop and close to Selfridge's.

and even mentions 'american' food places.

I'd love to check it out when I'm in London next week and give you a first-hand report but am already tied into a show in the evening and a meal at one of the Fire and Stone places afterwards...sounds like fun tho...

Thanks for the tip. The general lack of outdoor dining was my only complaint about London.

It runs north from Bond Street tube up towards Wigmore Street. Last time I was there it wasn't at all plastic!

Just above St. Christopher Place and thus a bit farther away from Oxford St. is Marylebone High St. which is nice little street of cafes, shops, pubs and a great book store, Daunt Books. Some pavement dining--not as crowded at St. Christopher Place.

I need to explore north of Oxford Street more - years ago it was a wasteland but not now i guess.

thanks

bardo - the main reason why outdoor dining is not widespread here is that the weather is unpredictable and often bloody miserable. Easter greetings to all our overseas friends on a very wet Good Friday. 9 deg C here in Wiltshire. 48 deg for you American types. No barbies for us this weekend.

No barbies for us this weekend.>

Whimps!

stfc,

Almost the same temp here as Wiltshire--47F at 1:10 pm. Chilly start to spring in the Midwest.

St Christopher's Place is quite nice. There is a selection of restaurants, mainly independent Italian trattoria type places as well as a few branches of smaller chains. There are a couple of pubs and bars too. The 'American' restaurants referred to will be Tootsies and one of the gourmet burger places. It does get very busy (especially on the few days we can actually eat outside in London!) but you can usually find somewhere with a table free.

One of my best friends works near Selfridges so we often meet at St Christopher's Place for after work drinks and dinner as there's quite a bit of choice there.

Thanks, Pal. Looks good.

St Christopher's Place is "quite nice" in English. Not in American.

IMHO, it's a loud collection of mediocre eating places (including the awful Carluccio's: a chain that consistently serves really, really, dreadful Italian food in unbearably noisy atmospheres, but carries the name of a wonderful Italian cook and really, really nice person so no-one's prepared to tell the truth about the crap that's served in his name) - most used (and best suited) for raucous post-work shared bottles of wine.

From about nowish till late September, it's a reasonable meeting place for people who like that kind of thing: there's a few of those planet-destroying space heaters (though, again IMHO, they just make sitting under them unbearably hot, while the area around can still get chilly). There really isn't a restaurant where eating's a pleasure in its own right: but there are a few which are OK if outdoor eating is what the company you're with wants.

Since a/c's rare in London, and when it does get hot, central London can get unbearable, St Christopher's Place can sound like the answer to a muggy summer evening. Trouble is: half of London thinks so too. So on a hot evening, service plunges below even the London norm as Lithuanian waiters decide they don't have to make even their usual half-hearted attempts to be polite since their restaurant has more customers than it can cope with.

Guess who got the thumb-in-soup routine...

Which routine, please, Patrick?