Restaurant: The Place Below

Tucked away from the buzzing surroundings of the City, is a small restaurant called "The Place Below". It is, however, right in the heart of "real London", right under the St-Mary-le-Bow church in Cheapside in the crypt of the church that makes a true Londoner a real Londoner.
A word of warning: It is slightly difficult to find. Basically you need to enter the church, and you will see stairs going down into the crypt. Although the Place Below is a self-service restaurant, the surroundings are quite nice (even intimate if you manage to get one of the tables in the "caves" around the main dining area) and make you forget this. The food is definitely very nice, with a definite emphasis on healthy and flavoursome food, rather than just vegetarian: not a surprise then that brown rice, honey and wholemeal are dominant in the menue, though combined with other great ingredients. For lunch I had a "health bowl", a mix of puy lentils and brown rice with a delicious dressing made from sesame, ginger and balsamic vinegar (probably enough as a small lunch), and a Moroccan style vegetables with rice (again) and peanuts (which made a nice combination). To top it all of, there was a very delicious pear and apple crumble (yummy!) with clotted cream (ok, ....) .

The staff were noticeably very friendly and certainly made an effort to offer a service with a smile. The only down point to note is that unfortunately the Place Below is only open from 7:30 am in the morning until 3:00 pm, so no dinners - yet it would be a perfect place for a candle light dinner (unless you are scared of ghosts, presumably). A nice touch: If you are prepared to have lunch outside of the peak hours, i.e. before noon or after 1:30 pm, some dishes are £2 cheaper.

St Mary le Bow church, Cheapside, London EC2V 6AU
http://www.theplacebelow.co.uk/

Photo credit: stevecadman.