The Quality Chop House has been on Farringdon Road since 1869 — the original signage on the facade calls it a "Progressive Working Class Caterer." The Victorian interior, with its high-backed wooden pews in which you sit elbow-to-elbow with strangers, is listed, and the menu honours the tradition with exceptional versions of British classics: confit potatoes, ox cheeks, aged beef from named farms.
The wine shop next door is excellent and their cellar list is one of the best in London. Book ahead for weekends; the fixed pew layout makes it very popular.