Akara review – a taste of West Africa in Borough Market
A West African jack of all trades and a master of fun
Latest Entries
Santo Remedio London Bridge review – the best Mexican restaurant in London is back with a bigger menu
Disclosure: I contributed to Santo Remedio’s crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter with a modest donation in the region of £75-200. Updated 25/02/19 – added details of 2019 revisits Arrogant. Cocksure. Overconfident know-nothing. Snooty elitist. Those are just some of the epithets slung my way in the hatemail that I try to ignore (usually quite successfully). That … Continue reading
Duddell’s review – Chinese cooking in a London Bridge church
Hong Kong in the shadow of the Shard Update 07/01/2020 – this restaurant has now closed It’s very easy to take things for granted and Cantonese food is one of those things. London has been fortunate enough to benefit from some respectable and credible Cantonese cooking for several years now. And yet this venerable style … Continue reading
Yen review – the soba ‘specialists’ that also serve sushi, sashimi and donburi
A head-scratching double take on The Strand Bringing an under-appreciated cuisine or dish to foreign shores is an effort fraught with all sorts of logistical, culinary and financial difficulties. Reviewing such an effort isn’t as arduous, but still has pitfalls of its own. Yen, a new restaurant on The Strand, is a purported specialist in … Continue reading
Kashmir, Putney review – menu handholding that doesn’t infantilise the diner
Southwest London doesn’t know how lucky it really is Menus may look like an innocuous list of dishes and prices to most people. But, unless they’ve been written on the fly by a sleep-deprived proprietor teetering on the edge of alcoholism, they can be a far more calculated, insidious instrument designed to subtly serve the … Continue reading
★★★★☆ / Indian / South Asian
Gul and Sepoy review – prince and pauper Indian dining in Spitalfields
Look beyond the marketing spin at this Gunpowder threequel Update 12/3/23: this restaurant has now closed As the end of the year approaches, so does the anniversary of this website and so my feeble mind inevitably ponders all that it has accomplished. While I would like to think that I’ve helped at least a few … Continue reading
Breddos Tacos Soho review – brilliance served with a side of incompetence
Raffish Clerkenwell Mexican sprouts second branch in Soho Update: 8/02/2018 – added new opening hours A great many things flow through my mind when I’m being ignored at a restaurant, once I become bored with my phone. Will I starve to death in this place, with lunching desk jockeys and freelance debutantes stepping over my … Continue reading
Gilly’s Fry Bar review – the chippy that wants to be a tempura restaurant
Finsbury Park doesn’t need more battered fried food I have a confession to make. It’s a deeply unpopular, long-held opinion that will not endear me to many of you. It’ll be even more controversial than the time I disparaged chicken, dismissing it as a soulless meat fit only for children and invalids. I don’t like … Continue reading
Ella Canta review – hotel restaurant brings modern Mexico to Mayfair
Mexico City celeb chef opens outpost in the badlands of Park Lane Update 27/8/2018 – corrected erroneous star rating in end-of-review summary If you’ve told me a few years ago that a Mexican restaurant, backed by famed chilango celeb chef Martha Ortiz, would open within the bowels of the InterContinental Hotel on Park Lane then … Continue reading
Coal Rooms Peckham review – a train station restaurant that isn’t a dreary chain
Plus a beast of a bacon sandwich Salvaging, reusing and repurposing old fittings and furnishings to adorn new restaurants is nothing new; it’s been an ongoing trend in the English-speaking world for at least a decade, if not more. Renovating old buildings, while judiciously paying homage to their original purpose, has received less attention but … Continue reading
Miss P’s Barbecue review – proper BBQ comes to Croydon
Disclosure: I backed this restaurant’s crowdfunding effort on Kickstarter (in the range of £50-£100). Update 17/10/17 – corrected details about the pulled pork and fixed some typos. Unlike some other reviewers, I’m not obsessively critical of the famed Michelin Guide (not that either gives a fig about what I think). While it certainly has its … Continue reading
The Picky Glutton 
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