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 Langham’s second hotel bar in all but name I review relatively few gastropubs, not because I have any objection to them but due to a pair of far more prosaic reasons. For starters, many of the most interesting new gastropubs seem to be opening outside of London. As as a typical rootless cosmopolitan elitist, … 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
TV CV only gets you oh so far I have little time for most TV celebrity chefs, but I’ll usually make an exception for Rick Stein. His genteel avuncular charm, childlike wonder and boundless yet measured enthusiasm make him far more watchable than the majority of his arse-clenchingly irritating peers. The big man naturally doesn’t cook in … Continue reading
In defence of the tasting menu. But not necessarily *this* tasting menu. There’s an unspoken rule that reviewers shouldn’t openly criticise each other’s work. This isn’t a conspiracy – we’re too competitive and too inept for such a concerted undertaking – but an acknowledgement that half-arsed writing and lapses in judgement can affect us all. … Continue reading
2016: I love you and I hate you 2016 may have a stomach churning, gut punching year in the realm of politics and celebrity deaths, but at least it’s also been a rip-roaring thrill ride for Londoners who like to eat out. Some truly wondrous restaurants have opened in the capital over the past year – and … Continue reading
Chicken? Where we’re going, we don’t need chicken. Update 25/2/2018 – updated formatting, added details of early 2018 revisit I try not to pay too much attention to a restaurant’s PR push before I eat there, as the nauseating buzzwords, jargon and marketing waffle can colour my view of the place before it’s even opened. … Continue reading
Curry that makes you feel at home. Sort of. Update 12/3/23: this restaurant has now closed I’ve never understood the compulsion for restaurants to describe dishes as ‘home made’. When eating out, I want professionally made dishes – culinary delights that I couldn’t make at home. That conceit is slightly different at Calcutta Street though. … Continue reading
Oxford Street has never had it so good Update 14/2/17 – this restaurant has now closed Although by no means the most incongruously positioned restaurant I’ve ever come across, Piquet is nonetheless oddly located. Wedged in-between a faceless office block and a hair salon, it sits opposite a building site and part of Oxford Street’s branch … Continue reading
Don’t just look at the star rating and move on, read the words If anything symbolises the obstacles London’s insane property market throws in the way of budding restauranteurs, then it’s the location of Pidgin. Located in a mostly residential area on a side street with a handful of other shops, passing trade is probably … Continue reading
The Picky Glutton 
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