Arcade Food Theatre review – a guide to Centre Point’s shiny new food court
★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆ / Street food/food court

Arcade Food Theatre review – a guide to Centre Point’s shiny new food court

Restaurants, rather than street food, dominate this glossy middle-class cafeteria Arcade Food Theatre is a food court taking up the entire street-level annexe of Centre Point, the Tottenham Court Road skyscraper that everyone loves to hate. Even more unusually for a London food court, Arcade Food Theatre isn’t filled with street food traders. Its stalls … Continue reading

Mercato Metropolitano review – the Southwark street food hall trying to be everything to everyone
★★★★★ / ★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆ / ★★☆☆☆ / ★☆☆☆☆ / Street food/food court

Mercato Metropolitano review – the Southwark street food hall trying to be everything to everyone

Halfway between Elephant & Castle and London Bridge, but nowhere in particular Updated 30/9/2019 – added reviews of new traders and updated the reviews of Badiani, Duman, Little Sicily and Turkish Garden Updated 16/4/2019 – added hyperlinked table of contents, corrected spelling and grammatical errors The weird thing about street food in London isn’t the … Continue reading

Sushi Atelier review – great value sushi where you least expect it
★★★★☆ / Japanese / Sushi/Sashimi

Sushi Atelier review – great value sushi where you least expect it

The Chisou empire’s Great Portland Street outpost Of all the London restaurants to have closed in the past year or two, few have wounded me as much as the unexpected closure of Ten Ten Tei. That budget Soho restaurant wasn’t perfect. Aside from the iffy service, one of its chief sins was its smorgasbord menu … Continue reading

Yen review – the soba ‘specialists’ that also serve sushi, sashimi and donburi
★★★☆☆ / Japanese / Japanese Noodles

Yen review – the soba ‘specialists’ that also serve sushi, sashimi and donburi

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

Jugemu review – Soho izakaya flies solo
★★★★☆ / Japanese / Japanese Noodles / Sushi/Sashimi

Jugemu review – Soho izakaya flies solo

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

Eating my way around Japan part 2 – Wakayama’s Kii Peninsula and the Kumano Kodo
Japanese / Sushi/Sashimi

Eating my way around Japan part 2 – Wakayama’s Kii Peninsula and the Kumano Kodo

This Japan-focussed article is a break from The Picky Glutton’s usual London-based coverage For many the archetypal image of Japan is the buzzing, sprawling megacity exemplified by Tokyo. But, to state the trite and obvious, there’s another side to the country which is just as compelling – the countryside. One sliver of Japan’s expansive rural … Continue reading

Poke in London review: Tombo vs Black Roe vs the rest
American / ★★★★☆ / ★★★☆☆ / ★★☆☆☆ / ★☆☆☆☆

Poke in London review: Tombo vs Black Roe vs the rest

The Hawaiian raw fish salad that isn’t sushi Every now and again newspapers and blogs alike fall over themselves to breathlessly pant over and extoll the latest food trend imported from the US. Restaurants, street food stalls and supper clubs serving up the trend are listed and thus implicitly recommended, irrespective of the actual quality … Continue reading

Sushisamba review – sky-high group dining
★★☆☆☆ / Eclectic / Japanese / Sushi/Sashimi

Sushisamba review – sky-high group dining

Glossy, pretty and oh so vacant Tourist guide books often note that London no longer has a high-rise rotating tower restaurant like Berlin’s TV Tower or Toronto’s CN Tower. While thankfully true, this doesn’t mean London is short of skyscraper restaurants – far from it. There are plenty of places where you’re paying more for the … 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

Inamo St James review – computer-controlled Piccadilly Japanese
★★★☆☆ / Japanese / Pan-Asian / Sushi/Sashimi

Inamo St James review – computer-controlled Piccadilly Japanese

High-tech but low brow food? London’s restaurant scene is very crowded to say the least, so newcomers often need a gimmick just to get noticed. Inamo’s trick is that instead of ordering via a human waiter, you order using a computer with the screen beamed onto your table from a projector sitting above each table. … Continue reading