Oxford Street’s eating options get a kick in the pants The little patch of shops and restaurants adjacent to Selfridges known as St. Christopher’s Place used to be one of London’s dining out black spots. Full of tourist traps fronted by touts wielding laminated menus either the length of the Bible or full of badly … 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
The meal so bad, I had to apologise to my dining companion The cliché about the suburbs, especially those south of the river, is that there’s nowhere good to eat. That’s not quite true anymore, if it ever was, especially as London’s property crisis and the increasingly brutal restaurant market push more and more restaurateurs … Continue reading
Smoke is the new black. It’s easy to rant and rail against hipsters and their rapidly gentrifying east London hub. For many, such as my dining companion Vicious Alabaster, they’re all little more than pompous, shallow, fad-chasing Macaroni twits. That may or may not be true, but I generally don’t care. From a utilitarian perspective, they … Continue reading
Botched burgers and bungled barbecue Conflating burgers and barbecue into the same menu is a common mistake. It’s easy to see why – alongside mac and cheese, they are the emblematic dishes of American cuisine in the popular imagination. But they’re also very different. The best burgers are cooked medium rare at high temperatures with … Continue reading
But not necessarily for the better Update: 16/11/2016 – BBQ Whisky Beer have apparently rebranded themselves as Smok’d. The amusingly named BBQ Whisky Beer was one of the best barbecue eateries in my original barbecue group test and it continued to impress on subsequent visits. After decamping to the Kentish hinterland for a spell, BBQ … Continue reading
London Bridge has never had it so good Update 29/1/18 – added details of revisit and updated formatting There are many injustices in London’s restaurant scene (I’m still hurting after the closure of Rex and Mariano), but few things annoy me more than unworthy barbecue restaurants. The likes of Porky’s, Bodean’s and Red Dog Saloon … Continue reading
Bait and switch tourist trap barbecue For many people Bodean’s is syonymous with American-style barbecue in London, but that doesn’t mean the food is actually any good. As I discovered in my original BBQ group test, the Tower Hill and Fulham branches of Bodean’s were distinctly middling, average and underwhelming – and that’s before you consider all the barbecue … Continue reading
A waste of Soho real estate Update 19/06/2020 – this restaurant has now closed I haven’t heard the name Bukowski Grill in years – not since my round up of London’s best non-chain burgers. The Shoreditch branch of Bukowski fared poorly in those burger stakes, so it was no surprise when superior burger purveyors expanded far more rapidly … Continue reading
Unutterable swear words suppressed The quality of American-style barbecue in London has made leaps and bounds in the past several years, but continual progress is by no means guaranteed. There’s no clearer example of the potential for setting back an entire genre through massive incompetence than Low, Slow and Juke. Owned by pubco Marston’s, this underground … Continue reading
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