Guinness Open Gate Brewery, London WC2: ‘Absolute “will-this-do?” nonsense’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

The new Guinness Open Gate Brewery, with its tours, gift shop and dining options, has appeared in Covent Garden, slap-bang in the centre of London’s most nosebleedingly expensive real estate.

This multi-multi-million-pound paean to “the black stuff”, where Guinness disciples can make pilgrimage, has been on the capital’s horizon for what seems like an era. The project has been tantalisingly dangled as an opening for some years, then delayed umpteen times, because, quite understandably, erecting a purpose-built, gargantuan, multi-floor Willy Wonka’s Booze Factory in the West End of London for a corporate behemoth is no easy feat. Imagine the layers of global, bureaucratic, cross-platform multi-media team Zooms that had to happen to hone the ultimate Guinness experience. So many Is to dot and Ts to cross, particularly, because food is a central part of the venture, with two restaurants on site – The Porter’s Table and Gilroy’s Loft – where exec chef Pip Lacey is serving non-challenging yet hearty menus, as well as a courtyard pie stall by Calum Franklin.

Safe bet: the ‘soft, crusty, scone-like’ Guinness soda bread at Open Gate Brewery, London WC2.

Eventually, last December, Open Gate Brewery finally flung open its doors. Or, more accurately, it opened its many, many sets of doors, because Open Gate is not one site, like Willy Wonka’s Factory or even Madame Tussauds, where you step inside and leave the real world behind. Instead, it is spread over several streets. A shop here, a restaurant there, a street stall over here, which makes the whole thing rather underwhelming.

Aside from a twinkly cobbled area beside the gift shop, there’s nothing very photo-worthy for tourists to flood social media with. This is where my alarm bells went off. The London Guinness experience is decidedly subtle. Apparently, they brew small-batch ales here, so can call themselves a brewery, but I saw no real push to sell them. Certainly not in the Porter’s Table, which I’d imagined would be a dark, sleek, modern, Irish-feeling restaurant with a welcoming Guinness for every diner, and an aura that you were in the home of that hallowed pint. I’d imagined servers drilled to flog Guinness, making a fuss of the pour, and how it pairs with specific meats and cheeses. Perhaps Hothouse Flowers, the Cranberries and the Chieftains would be playing in the background as I ate Guinness soda bread surrounded by chipper Irish-American tourists who adore their ancestry.

‘Would have been dry without Guinness-peppercorn sauces and fermented chilli’: Guinness Open Gate Brewery’s platter of chicken, ribeye and triple potato Guinness and mushroom pie.

The Guinness team have in fact spent millions making a restaurant that feels more like a Google HQ staff room with scarcely a mention of Guinness. No branded colours, no menu pairings, no concerted effort to sell you a pint. Maybe Guinness is so cool now – what with the TV drama and non-stop TikTok kids bleating on about splitting the G – that its marketing agency thought the most powerful thing to do would be to quash anything as cheesy as serving the stuff.

Be warned, however, if you do get stuck in on the pints in this ground-floor Guinness restaurant and need to spend a penny, the loos are on the fifth floor, and reachable only by lift. Guinness, let the record show, cannot organise a piss-up in a brewery.

We ordered Guinness soda bread, which was served in some sort of weird iron safe. God knows why. It tasted wonderful: soft, crusty, scone-like. A round of “lyrical lager beer frickles” were pleasant enough, and a Porter’s beer melt with Paxton & Whitfield cheese on brioche was essentially a McDonald’s cheeseburger made with toast. The patty was ungenerous, albeit nicely seasoned.

‘Little more than some sponge’: Guinness Open Gate Brewery’s The Three Stouts dessert.

Some ribeye – a scant 200g, served medium rare – and a half-chicken were good, if unmemorable, and would have been dry without Guinness-peppercorn sauces and fermented chilli, which cost an extra £4.50 for small pots. A Guinness-themed dessert called The Three Stouts was little more than some sponge with a bit of cream and chocolate caramel atop. Absolute “will-this-do?” nonsense.

This was a puzzling experience. Why does this restaurant need a huge, noisy open kitchen to serve chicken and chips? How can the very respected Devonshire pub, a short walk away in Piccadilly, be doing more for the image of Guinness than a hundred executives on six-figure wages organising this extravaganza? How did they create a gift shop with literally nothing worth buying, and in two short hours make me love the brand less? If you’re a tourist in London, go to Madame Tussauds instead.

• Guinness Open Gate Brewery, 28 Shelton Street, London WC2 (no phone). Open all week, Mon-Thurs 11am-11.30pm, Fri & Sat 11am-midnight, Sun noon-10.30pm. From about £50 a head for three courses, plus drinks & service