Bar barbecue face-off During my recent round up of American-style barbecue places, an unsurprisingly large number of the best places to eat were market stalls and residencies inside bars. One of the winners of that round-up, Texas Joe’s, has since set up shop inside Brewdog Shoreditch. This gave me the perfect excuse to see how … Continue reading
Soho’s cheeky upstart pizza parlour Soho isn’t short of pizza restaurants, but Pizza Pilgrims has a leg up on its competition. Having started out as a street market van that’s still touring London’s street food markets, Pizza Pilgrims has already built up a legion of fans. Even more importantly it has a traditional hand-built pizza oven. The … Continue reading
Fitzrovia Chinese reaches new highs and lows Restaurants in London’s Chinatown are renowned for their brusque, hurried service, but this culture of surly indifference has no geographical boundaries. Oriental Dragon on Cleveland Street in Fitzrovia is a classic example. Although the service wasn’t completely charmless, overall it was hilariously unhelpful and it reached the apex … Continue reading
Dinner time baguettes, ciabattas and buns Having a sandwich for dinner sounds like something only a slummy student might do, but having a steak sandwich from Mamita Que Chorizo is no second-best option. This small Shoreditch restaurant is only open in the evenings from Thursday to Saturday (perfect for chucking out time) and serves up … Continue reading
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire? When I surveyed the state of American-style barbecue in London, one of the most common queries was ‘what about Smokehouse?’. However, despite its name Smokehouse isn’t devoted purely to barbecue. This joint venture between Neil Rankin, former head chef at Pitt Cue, and the people behind the nearby Pig and … Continue reading
Hirata buns or gua bao – by any other name they would be as sweet Updated 8/11/13 – removed incorrect information about the term ‘hirata buns’, added new background Updated 11/3/14 – fixed broken Table of Contents When a new dish or cuisine is introduced to the UK, it’s inevitably given an analogous description that’s … Continue reading
BBQ, Barbecue, Bar-B-Q, Barbeque. A rose by any other name is just as sweet. The British summer inevitably means that groups of men all across the country will be huddled around a heap of coals, trying to light and stoke a barbecue grill. While there’s a lot of joy to be had in a backyard grill … Continue reading
A cosy North London neighbourhood restaurant Until recently I’d largely become bored of Italian restaurants in London. They were either underwhelming, needlessly fussy or old-fashioned and just plain awful. What restored my faith wasn’t a glitzy haute cuisine restaurant in Mayfair or Chelsea, but a small bistro near Finsbury Park called Osteria Tufo. Osteria Tufo … Continue reading
This review is in partnership with Match.com. That means they reimbursed me for the cost of the first meal in this review, but apart from asking me to include an evaluation of how romantic this restaurant was, they had no say over the content of this review. Finding a romantic but affordable place to have … Continue reading
Small plates near BBC Broadcasting House Grabbing a reasonably quick but good quality sit-down meal in London can be tricky. Whether you want to treat yourself during your lunch break or need to catch a show or the last train home, it’s often necessary to resort to pre/post-theatre set menus or cheap and nasty chains. … Continue reading
The Picky Glutton 
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