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
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
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
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
It’s both different from the original Soho Temper and reassuringly similar too Update 25/8/2018 – this restaurant’s menu has changed drastically. It now closely resembles the one at the original Temper Soho. 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, … 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
A southeast London restaurant worth getting excited about The idea that southeast London is a gastronomic desert bereft of anywhere good to eat out is a long-held canard. Although somewhat overstated, especially in boroughs with relative wealth and proximity to Zone 1, there is an element of truth to it. With the locals spending the … Continue reading
Uniquely Japanese in more ways than one Eccentric cultural institutions usually lose something in translation when they’re transplanted outside of their home country. Monster truck rallies, Eccles cakes and Viz magazine are prime examples. The izakaya is another. A Japanese staple, these bar-cum-restaurants are often translated as pubs or gastropubs, but none of those names really quite fit as izakayas are subtly different … Continue reading
Quack, quack, honk If there’s one thing that London isn’t short of, it’s Cantonese restaurants. For years it was the only kind of Chinese food widely available in the capital, with other cuisines from the continent-sized country only becoming prevalent in the past decade or so. This increased regional representation makes Duck Duck Goose even more … 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
The Picky Glutton 
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