Bubala review – the Middle Eastern vegetarian and vegan restaurant taking Spitalfields by storm
★★★★☆ / Lebanese/Jordanian/Levantine / Vegetarian

Bubala review – the Middle Eastern vegetarian and vegan restaurant taking Spitalfields by storm

If vegetables are so delicious, then why do so many vegetarian and vegan restaurants insist on making them resemble meat instead? It’s never been easy eating out as a vegetarian in London. Prior to the noughties, your choices were largely divided between Indian restaurants of variable quality and hemp-ridden Mildred’s-type establishments which were almost universally … Continue reading

Ella Canta review – hotel restaurant brings modern Mexico to Mayfair
★★★☆☆ / Mexican

Ella Canta review – hotel restaurant brings modern Mexico to Mayfair

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

Diwana Bhel Poori review – Euston vegetarian Indian group dining
★★★☆☆ / Indian / South Asian

Diwana Bhel Poori review – Euston vegetarian Indian group dining

Cheap as chips and almost as good Trying to find a restaurant for a large group of people is a royal pain in the unmentionables. Cramming a baker’s dozen around a table can be a logistical feat akin to the Berlin Airlift, especially when everyone has competing, conflicting demands. My own unruly posse of dining … Continue reading

Lyle’s review – minimalist Shoreditch restaurant is exquisite despite its flaws
★★★★☆ / British / Modern European / Modernist

Lyle’s review – minimalist Shoreditch restaurant is exquisite despite its flaws

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

Kricket Soho review – Anglo-Indian food without the omelette and chips
★★★★☆ / South Asian

Kricket Soho review – Anglo-Indian food without the omelette and chips

What’s old is new again. Indian restaurants in London have tended to go through periodic and repeated rebirths over the past few years, with numerous attempts at moving the cuisine on from the curry house clichés that it’s fallen into with varying degrees of success. The most recent wave in the capital have tended to … Continue reading

Kuuk review – lovely mansion, shame about the food
★★☆☆☆ / Mexican / Modern European / Modernist

Kuuk review – lovely mansion, shame about the food

This review of a Yucatan restaurant is a break from The Picky Glutton’s usual London-based coverage Kuuk almost certainly has two meanings. Firstly as a play on the word ‘cook’, which suggests a small, quirky and playful restaurant. The fully apostrophised name, ‘K’u’uk’, is almost certainly an allusion to the Mayan name for the prehispanic deity … Continue reading

Vico review – Italian fast food that thinks it’s opera but is just out of tune
★★★☆☆ / Italian / Pizza

Vico review – Italian fast food that thinks it’s opera but is just out of tune

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

Kurobuta Marble Arch review – modern Japanese izakaya falls flat
★★☆☆☆ / Japanese / Sushi/Sashimi

Kurobuta Marble Arch review – modern Japanese izakaya falls flat

An Edgware Road restaurant that isn’t Lebanese Eating at Kurobuta has, if nothing else, confirmed that I’m slowly devolving into a cantankerous old fart. Kurobuta is a modern take on the izakaya, a Japanese food pub, situated on a residential street just off Edgware Road. Originally due to open last Autumn, it was so delayed … Continue reading