Category Archives: ★★★☆☆

Nando’s vs Roosters Piri Piri review – cheap and cheeky chicken comparison
★★★☆☆ / Steak/chophouse

Nando’s vs Roosters Piri Piri review – cheap and cheeky chicken comparison

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With lockdown, I have fewer respites from the amateurish tedium of my own cooking. It was this, combined with the need to run errands for an ill dining companion, that led me to pucker up for a cheeky Nando’s for the first time in years. At the same time, the existence of a notable competitor in the form of Roosters Piri Piri, a franchised chain with branches in London as well as farther afield, piqued my curiosity. There’s only one thing for it – a takeaway piri piri chicken-and-chips comparison. Continue reading →

Macellaio RC Union Street review – the Italian steakhouse that can’t tear itself away from pizza
★★★☆☆ / Italian / Pizza / Steak/chophouse

Macellaio RC Union Street review – the Italian steakhouse that can’t tear itself away from pizza

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‘What’s an Italian steakhouse?!’ The answer, of course, is a restaurant that serves steak cut from Italian cows. It’s a revealing response – pasta, pizza and pesto cast such a shadow over the perception of Italian food in our collective imagination, that anything else is literally inconceivable. If goldfish really do have a memory of just three seconds, then our gestalt intelligence is seemingly limited to just three things per subject. Continue reading →

Chuku’s review – Nigerian tapas takes Seven Sisters by storm
★★★☆☆ / Nigerian/West African

Chuku’s review – Nigerian tapas takes Seven Sisters by storm

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The entire menu reviewed starting with all the vegetarian and vegan dishes The surprising thing about Chuku’s, to me at least, isn’t that this Tottenham restaurant serves Nigerian food. Although comparatively uncommon, Nigerian food isn’t too hard to find in London’s southeastern suburbs from Nigerian restaurants to (broadly) pan-West African takeaways. But those eateries not … Continue reading →

Trivet review – the London Bridge fine dining restaurant with an identity crisis
★★★☆☆ / Modern European / Modernist

Trivet review – the London Bridge fine dining restaurant with an identity crisis

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What’s the point of all this? Fine dining used to be so easy to identify. The opulently decorated dining rooms, the tablecloths, the suited and booted staff – and that was just the physical environment, never mind the hushed aura. Then there was the food, itself a world apart from what most of us ate … Continue reading →

Trap Kitchen review – affordable seafood swims into Balham via Instagram
★★★☆☆ / Eclectic / Seafood

Trap Kitchen review – affordable seafood swims into Balham via Instagram

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This crab dinner has legs, but it’s running before it can walk The potential of Instagram to power and propel businesses from mere photographic ideas into actual money making businesses is well known. It’s one thing to read about it though and quite to another to sit in a restaurant that has its origins in … Continue reading →

Prairie Fire review – the smoke and fire of American barbecue arrives in White City
American / ★★★☆☆ / Barbecue/BBQ

Prairie Fire review – the smoke and fire of American barbecue arrives in White City

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But the embers are already flickering out I’ve watched the growth and rise of Prairie Fire with interest and concern. Originally a street food stall with a stint at the original Mercato Metropolitano, this American barbecue restaurant has now found itself a permanent home in a former railway arch in White City across the road … Continue reading →

My favourite London restaurant dishes of 2019
★★★★★ / ★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆ / News

My favourite London restaurant dishes of 2019

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The best dishes of the year that you haven’t tried yet As another year – and another decade – come to an end, it’s tempting to feel a sense of melancholy. The country as a whole rushes headlong into what will almost certainly be a jingoistically embarrassing debacle, while countless cherished restaurants have shut their … Continue reading →

Kolamba review – the Sri Lankan Soho upstart trying to rival Hoppers
★★★☆☆ / Sri Lankan

Kolamba review – the Sri Lankan Soho upstart trying to rival Hoppers

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But it’s an island-sized disappointment London’s restauranteurs love a good trend bandwagon to jump upon, whether it’s gua bao or banh mi. So it’s something of a surprise that it’s taken this long for another Sri Lankan restaurant to open up in zone 1 following the runaway success of Hoppers, both the original in Soho … Continue reading →