It’s both different from the original Soho Temper and reassuringly similar too I try not to write too much about the industry goings-on in London’s restaurant scene. Such gossipy navel-gazing is often transient in its importance, at best, and really doesn’t serve the purpose of this site which is to help you find somewhere really good … Continue reading
The Pidgin sequel takes flight but doesn’t quite soar 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 a second branch closer to the centre of … Continue reading
Not nearly as cliched as you might think at first glance Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A fine dining restaurant with a much-vaunted chef at the helm has opened in leafy, wealthy zone 1 West London and serves dishes based on seasonal British produce. If that sentence of postmodern London restaurant cliches … Continue reading
The gastropub cousin to Bocca di Lupo Most new restaurants launch in a blaze of publicity glory with press releases spamming inboxes, repetitively woolly social media chatter, oversubscribed launch parties, a Ryanair-style rush for reservations and fawning coverage from all the usual suspects. Plaquemine Lock, the new gastropub from one of the bods behind Soho’s … Continue reading
Like a regenerated Doctor Who, what’s old is new again. I tend to review new restaurants and Claude Bosi at Bibendum does technically count as a new restaurant, having only just opened at the beginning of April this year. Except, in some ways, it is more of an amalgam of restaurants that have gone before it. Most … Continue reading
Defies both easy categorisation and expectations If there’s been one defining cultural aesthetic in the West over the past 20 years or so, then it has to be minimalism. Paring back everything to their essentials is, depending on your point of view, either the ideal way to show off something’s true nature or a stark, monotonous … Continue reading
Plus the most mumbling tasting menu ever The overall trend in London restaurant menus, for the past few years, has been brevity. A few dishes, done well. Avoiding the false benefit of ‘choice’ and focussing instead on quality has been a very welcome development, but not every restaurant believes in short menus. A Wong has … Continue reading
