Macellaio RC Union Street review – the Italian steakhouse that can’t tear itself away from pizza
★★★☆☆ / Italian / Pizza / Steak/chophouse

Macellaio RC Union Street review – the Italian steakhouse that can’t tear itself away from pizza

‘What’s an Italian steakhouse?!’ The answer, of course, is a restaurant that serves steak cut from Italian cows. It’s a revealing response – pasta, pizza and pesto cast such a shadow over the perception of Italian food in our collective imagination, that anything else is literally inconceivable. If goldfish really do have a memory of just three seconds, then our gestalt intelligence is seemingly limited to just three things per subject. 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

Pescheria Assunta review – there’s nothing at all fishy about the London branch of this Rome seafood restaurant
★★★☆☆ / Italian / Seafood

Pescheria Assunta review – there’s nothing at all fishy about the London branch of this Rome seafood restaurant

The Italian seafood restaurant that moved from Mayfair to Earl’s Court I had eaten my fill, but I was not satisfied. As the hapless staff flailed at even the most basic tasks, the feeling started to drain from my numbed backside and legs from sitting for so long, while my phone – my only bulwark … Continue reading

Coal Rooms Peckham review – a train station restaurant that isn’t a dreary chain
★★★☆☆ / Eclectic / Steak/chophouse

Coal Rooms Peckham review – a train station restaurant that isn’t a dreary chain

Plus a beast of a bacon sandwich Salvaging, reusing and repurposing old fittings and furnishings to adorn new restaurants is nothing new; it’s been an ongoing trend in the English-speaking world for at least a decade, if not more. Renovating old buildings, while judiciously paying homage to their original purpose, has received less attention but … Continue reading

In Parma by Food Roots review – Italian charcuterie and cheese you have to try
★★★★☆ / Italian

In Parma by Food Roots review – Italian charcuterie and cheese you have to try

A taste of northern Italy in Fitzrovia Italy has a bevy of regional cuisines but very few of them get any sort of exposure in London. For this reason alone In Parma deserves some credit for largely focussing on produce and dishes from the city of Parma and the surrounding region of Emilia-Romagna. This doesn’t seem that … Continue reading

Pipero al Rex review – quirky fine dining near Termini
★★★☆☆ / Italian / Modern European / Modernist

Pipero al Rex review – quirky fine dining near Termini

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

All’oro review – glossy Rome fine dining
★★★☆☆ / Italian / Modern European / Modernist

All’oro review – glossy Rome fine dining

This review of a Rome restaurant is a break from The Picky Glutton’s usual London-based coverage Update 19/2/15 – clarified language detail regarding Quandoo Love them or loath them, online restaurant reservation services such as OpenTable are now an integral part of London’s restaurant culture. This makes eating out in Rome seem all the more quixotic as … Continue reading

Sardo review – classy Fitzrovia Sardinian
★★★★☆ / Italian

Sardo review – classy Fitzrovia Sardinian

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

★★★★☆ / Italian

Meter review – Old Street pizza palace or pizza pants?

How does it measure up? Update July 2013 – this restaurant has now closed There’s obviously no shortage of pizza places in London, but most of them serve up grease-laden slices of slop. Franco Manca, with branches in Brixton, Chiswick and Westfield, is an exception but most of those locations aren’t exactly convenient if you’re … Continue reading