What’s the point of all this? Fine dining used to be so easy to identify. The opulently decorated dining rooms, the tablecloths, the suited and booted staff – and that was just the physical environment, never mind the hushed aura. Then there was the food, itself a world apart from what most of us ate … Continue reading
Small plates don’t always lead to big rewards Update 31/01/2022 – this restaurant has now closed There’s no shortage of places in London to graze on small tapas-sized plates while guzzling wine, places where the list of liver-annihilating beverages is several times longer than the menu, especially around London Bridge and Borough Market. To the … Continue reading
This review of a Rome restaurant is a break from The Picky Glutton’s usual London-based coverage Restaurants named after their chefs, celebrity or otherwise, is pretty standard but a restaurant named after its sommelier/proprietor is a new one (for me at least). That’s the case at Pipero al Rex, Alessandro Pipero’s restaurant inside Rome’s Hotel Rex. The … Continue reading
Entire menu reviewed at intriguing Clapham surprise When I’d heard that a restaurant in Clapham, The Dairy, was serving high quality, complex and beguiling food I dismissed the reports as utter lunacy. I regarded Clapham as full of nothing more than crap bars transplanted from the Costas and stuffed to the rafters with wannabe Hooray Henrys braying about … Continue reading
Independent Tottenham Court Road Italian There’s a small clutch of Italian restaurants on the western side of Tottenham Court Road in Fitzrovia, but most are either yawn-inducing chains or dreary places serving up massive menus of slop. One of the very few exceptions is Sardo, a long-standing restaurant specialising in dishes from Sardinia. Not to … Continue reading
The best meal of the year and inexcusably overlooked by the Michelin Guide I encountered a fellow travelling Brit with some interesting views on food during my recent jaunt around Jordan. Although he had a broad palate, this didn’t extend to Modernist cuisine, especially multi-course tasting menus. ‘Artsy fartsy’ ‘nouvelle cuisine’ wasn’t ‘proper food’ he contended. Like … Continue reading
A cosy North London neighbourhood restaurant Until recently I’d largely become bored of Italian restaurants in London. They were either underwhelming, needlessly fussy or old-fashioned and just plain awful. What restored my faith wasn’t a glitzy haute cuisine restaurant in Mayfair or Chelsea, but a small bistro near Finsbury Park called Osteria Tufo. Osteria Tufo … Continue reading
Is it really as good as everyone says it is? Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal needs no introduction for anyone who has even a casual interest in restaurants – the man is everywhere from numerous TV programs to even the front page of the Daily Mail. I’ve been chomping at the bit to try out his … Continue reading
Traditional British food with a twist in grand Victorian surroundings Despite the ravages of both the Luftwaffe and post-war urban planners, London has a diverse and remarkable architectural heritage and there are few better ways to appreciate this then by having dinner at the newly opened Gilbert Scott. The Gilbert Scott is housed within the … Continue reading
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