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
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
Max’s doesn’t serve BLTs, tuna mayo or Ploughman’s – it’s far more creative than that Sandwiches are everywhere, yet we rarely give them the proper due care and attention that they deserve. Clammy, flaccid supermarket sandwiches barely deserve the appellation, yet many of us not only eat them for lunch but for dinner too. Guiltily, … Continue reading
The Manor transforms into an Italian It’s tough times for restaurants with household names and independents alike having to close up shop all across the country. Skyrocketing business rates, a continuing staffing shortage, rising wages, intense competition (especially in London) and, in some cases, overaggressive expansion and impatient investors are all playing their part in … Continue reading
The Pidgin sequel takes flight but doesn’t quite soar Update 10/04/2019 – this restaurant is now closed I once wrote that it’s rare for a restaurant to relocate inwards from the suburbs to the centre of town, rather than other way around. Recent events are proving me wrong, showing that such a move (or sprouting … Continue reading
Steakhouse and pub all-in-one Update 19/7/21 – this restaurant has now closed The original Hill and Szrok is a butchers in Broadway Market that branched out into catering. Re-purposing its central marble slab into a communal table, the butcher turned into a self-described ‘cookshop’ at night. ‘Cookshops’ are apparently the Regency-era precursors to restaurants in … Continue reading
Cheap (ish) Cambridge Circus cuisine Marketing is a magical thing. It can transform the mundane into something much more wondrous and exotic. Vico, an Italian restaurant that has taken over what used to be the Pizza Hut on the corner of Cambridge Circus and Charing Cross Road, is basically a fast food joint. Or a canteen or cafeteria if … Continue reading
You can have any meat you want as long it’s Beef or Pork Beard to Tail is rather hard to categorise. Although it has a fairly broad menu of pork and beef dishes, it’s not really a steakhouse or a barbecue restaurant and sits uncomfortably somewhere in between. Although it’s within spitting distance of both … Continue reading
Alan Yau does pizza I’ve had mixed experiences at restaurants set up by fabled entrepreneur Alan Yau. I’ve enjoyed Hakkasan and Yauatcha, had reasonably good meals at Busaba Eatthai and utterly miserable food at Wagamama. Princi is an Italian bakery and pizzeria based in Milan, with its only foreign branch brought to London by Yau. … Continue reading
The Picky Glutton 