Summer and barbecue go together like Bank Holidays and rain. One naturally follows the other, but even better is a summer filled with American-style barbecue, a world away from a typical suburban garden grill topped with bangers and burgers. The low ‘n’ slow method of smoking meat produces such sublime results, that it has become … Continue reading
Category Archives: ★☆☆☆☆
Vinegar Yard review – the street food market that’s also a marketing ploy
Despite its liberal use of fairy lights, exposed brickwork and repurposed shipping containers, Vinegar Yard isn’t the plucky bohemian operation you might think it is. Continue reading
Mercato Metropolitano review – the Southwark street food hall trying to be everything to everyone
Halfway between Elephant & Castle and London Bridge, but nowhere in particular Updated 30/9/2019 – added reviews of new traders and updated the reviews of Badiani, Duman, Little Sicily and Turkish Garden Updated 16/4/2019 – added hyperlinked table of contents, corrected spelling and grammatical errors The weird thing about street food in London isn’t the … Continue reading
Street Feast Woolwich Public Market review: a street food guide
If there’s an ‘R’ word other than ‘restaurant’ that will elicit fierce emotions and strongly held opinions, then it’s ‘regeneration’ and the associated effects of gentrification that go with it. It’s therefore no surprise that the regeneration of Woolwich’s dilapidated but elegantly vaulted Public Market into Street Feast’s latest street food stall night market was … Continue reading
Tacos del 74 Dalston review – even worse than Tex-Mex food
You couldn’t pay me to eat here again. People like to sneer at hipsterish restaurants and bars in Shoreditch and Dalston. They’re seen by many as faddy, shallow trend-chasing establishment serving up fare that’s incomprehensible and inedible to ‘normal’ folk. I have little time for such half-baked nonsense, preferring to judge each establishment on its … Continue reading
Red Rooster at The Curtain review – the botched Shoreditch soul food transplant
Live music and a celebrity chef amount to a hill of beans Updated 23/11/20 – this restaurant has now closed I try to avoid mentioning celebrity chefs when writing about their restaurants. Apart from trying to avoid the cult of personality that most newspapers trip over themselves to indulge in, I just don’t think it … Continue reading
Poke in London review: Tombo vs Black Roe vs the rest
The Hawaiian raw fish salad that isn’t sushi Every now and again newspapers and blogs alike fall over themselves to breathlessly pant over and extoll the latest food trend imported from the US. Restaurants, street food stalls and supper clubs serving up the trend are listed and thus implicitly recommended, irrespective of the actual quality … Continue reading
The best and worst gelato in London – 109 scoops of Italian ice cream and 37 gelateria reviewed
All gelato is ice cream, but not all ice cream is gelato Update 24/8/2016 – added Badiani review, updated some links and fixed one location error Update 13/9/2016 – added Urban Ice review, updated some links It’s easy to joke about the cold and wet English summer, but those jokes will be a fond, distant … Continue reading
Low, Slow and Juke review – the most hideously disgraceful BBQ in London
Unutterable swear words suppressed The quality of American-style barbecue in London has made leaps and bounds in the past several years, but continual progress is by no means guaranteed. There’s no clearer example of the potential for setting back an entire genre through massive incompetence than Low, Slow and Juke. Owned by pubco Marston’s, this underground … Continue reading
Ruby Jean’s at The Royal George review – pubco Americana for drunks
Food fit only for pissheads I usually see a slight dip in the number of visitors to my website over the weekend largely due, I suspect, to most of you getting hammered to blot out the horrors of the preceding five days. Those memories of the working week aren’t going to obliterate themselves, after all. … Continue reading