I’ve always associated Vivat Bacchus with client entertainment. It seemed like the type of place to take suits, lawyer-types, or any carnivorous person for a little corporate card spendage. So when I got an invite to try their Farringdon branch, I called up suit-avert B for the mickey. With roots hailing from South Africa, Vivat Bacchus is known for their grilled meats, wine and cheese.
This week we were invited by the lovely people at Vivat Bacchus to their Farringdon location for dinner. I had heard of Vivat Bacchus, of course, its South African origin and fame for cheese and wine preceding it. If you’ve read my posts before, you’ll know that I am the cheese and wine queen of the Boozy Bunch, known for my fromage filled festivities, so I was pretty excited to visit.
Great restaurant! The owner Gerrie makes the place, he is friendly and remembers his customers! The food is phenomenal and great for a work lunch or after work meal!
Brilliant. Whether it's a typical fat boy City lunch or just a quick plate, this place rocks. Great variety and quality from the kitchen,, some left field dishes from South Africa and lunchtime pies to die for! A superb wine list and a good social scene too with regular, superb value, wine tastings. Ceri the owner is a top bloke, very welcoming and great fun. A go to restaurant for sure.
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Serious food and wine in relaxed surroundings. Vivat Bacchus is a restaurant/.wine bar that takes food and wine very seriously, and presents it in a relaxed (and often buzzy) atmosphere. There's a number of different rooms for different purposes (including private rooms) so it's worth having a chat to the staff if you have something special in mind. I've visited a few times - the food is varied, reliably good and well-presented, whether you go for the deli / tapas type options or the more upmarket options from the kitchen. Service is friendly and well-informed, but can feel sparse in the bar at busy times. They have wines that you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else (according to their suppliers at wine talks), and their wine cellar is extraordinary (again, anecdotally from someone I sat next to at a wine dinner who'd had some sort of late night lock-in with the owner and some growers).
There's something to suit all budgets. I normally eat from the bar menu, which offers sharing plates and tapas as well as more formal dishes, and you can go and explore their cheese room and have a customised platter made up. Their wine club dinners are always interesting, with (excellent) food designed to match the wines rather than the other way round, and the Monday wine tastings are good value and entertaining. It's well worth signing up to their mailing list if you're interested in food and wine, but it's also a good local wine bar (to me) for casual drop-ins.
Since my first visit to Vivat Bacchus in December last year, I have been to the London Bridge branch several more times for catch up with friends over cheese and wine...
"Life is too short to drink bad wine" - that's the motto of Vivat Bacchus, a wine bar (upstairs) and restaurant (basement) close to London Bridge station.
Great place where you can bring your own wine subjected to a corkage ofcourse.
Vivat Bacchus does good snacks and has a great cheese room where the cheese expert offered us lots of free samples and explained a lot about how the different cheeses are made and why they taste different.
A perfect place if you want to get acquainted with wine and cheese and later impress your friends ;)
Gingle Lists Everything
+3.5
Sadly, both time I have been to Vivat Bacchus have been for business occasions where it wouldn’t have been appropriate to take pictures. But I wish had been able to because they create some pretty as a picture dishes. This place actually is quite perfect for a business meeting over lunch or dinner. At lunchtime it was quiet, and the prices are very reasonable so won’t break the expense account. I had an open chicken and avocado sandwich for £8 the first time, and a beautiful salad full of pickled vegetables, for about the same price the first time. I liked it so much I took a second set of authors there for dinner last night. The atmosphere was much buzzier with a collection of suited people, couples and a groups of friends. As it was dinner, we all ordered from the grill section. I had the 200g Argentinian sirloin strip which came with triple-cooked chips, and I added a sauce of truffle butter as well, plus a side of buttered French beans. The steak was cooked very well, with a nice bit of charr and fat around the edges. The truffle butter came melted in a glass dish, with a sprig of rosemary steeping in it, imparting its herby flavour. I gleefully doused my steak with it, and soaked up any remaining butter with my chips.
For dessert I had the stickey toffee pudding with salted butterscotch sauce. This was so generous a portion I didn’t manage to eat it all, although I did ‘somehow’ seem to eat all the bits that had sponged up the sauce. This was a proper pudding pud. My dining companions shared a cheese board, the contents of which they left to the server to decide, just specifying that one should be a smoked cheese. I couldn’t catch all the cheeses they served but they looked and smelled wonderfully pungent. For somewhere that has its own mini cheese room, so they should.
This place isn’t fine dining – if you start trying to order anything too complicated or specify certain things, that will likely confuse them, but it is more than decent food at a very reasonable price. Wines too are rather good (as you’d expect from somewhere calling itself Vivat Bacchus). We had a fabulous, juicy and deep Grenache for only £28 a pop.
Really good place for a lunch or dinner! I tried the vegetarian dishes, though limited choice on the menu tasted incredible!
Our host was knowledgable about all the wines and shared extensive details for many of the bottles.
I love their cheese room - you can pick which cheeses you’d like for your dessert! A different and fun experience.
I look forward to my next visit.
This is such a gem, I've been here a few times and always had amazing service and incredibly delicious food. Some of the best steak I've ever had. I couldn't recommend this place more! Thank you to everyone at Vivat Bacchus, in particular the manager Anna who looked after us so well.
Wonderful experience. Went to celebrate my boyfriends birthday and we were certainly treated like gold. From getting complimentary champagne on arrival and the creamiest creme brulee with a candle, the staff really made the night special.
And of course, the food was amazing. Being from South Africa, the ribeye on the bone did not disappoint. Will definitely be making another appearance
This is a lovely place for a semi informal dinner with friends or perhaps colleagues. The food is excellent. The service is fantastic and if you like your wines there is plenty to choose from.
It is slightly on the pricey side, but in my opinion worth it.
Really great place for steak and wine. We ordered from their 3 course set menu and the meal was perfect. I started with the burrata, followed by a delicious steak and finished with the cheese platter. All went down well with their red wines. Lovely staff and atmosphere too!
Lovely group dinner at Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon. Fortunate to have one of the private dining rooms, which was lovely and perfect for our group of 18.
Food and service were both excellent, with wine flowing as needed. Big shout out to Anna for looking after us, and thanks also to Ryan for help with booking.
Hoping to come back, both to experience dining with friends and to have more corporate events!
We had a wonderful time and our waitress was just lovely.
We were celebrating my friend's birthday and our waitress helped make it a really fun evening. She provided the perfect balance of friendly attentiveness and space for us to talk (as well as some lovely complimentary birthday champagn!e). The food was also excellent (especially the burger) and we’re looking forward to returning for my birthday next month. Best meal I’ve had out in ages.
Excellent service and recommendations. Food and wine were great and both were a novelty as South African themed. Therefore some delicious spiced chicken and a very tender ostrich steak. Desserts were a very pleasant surprise. Highly recommend
We booked a private room downstairs for the team and had a great night out. To me, the crocodile starter and the ostrich steak were first timers, both were delicious and tasty. The selection of South African wine was also brilliant and the Syrah, merlot and Cabernet were outstanding. The African beer we tried (can’t recall the name) was excellent. Service was spot on and at the end, the whole evening was fun and memorable. 10/10 to Vivat Bacchus
Amazing food, ox cheek melted in your mouth! Definitely would recommend
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