Simpson’s-in-the-Strand – where Dickens and Shaw, Gladstone and Disraeli, Conan Doyle and PG Wodehouse all feasted – will close in April for an overhaul designed to reclaim its status as one of London’s leading restaurants. Founded in 1828 as the Grand Cigar Divan coffee house and chess club, it became famous for its lavish servings of […]
Once a byword for glamour, but in recent years more likely to provoke words like ‘dinosaur’, ‘tired’ and ‘dated’, Quaglino’s, in St James’s, has finally undergone a major refurb. We’ve reported the place as ‘fading’ for over a decade, to the extent that recent guides have often called for D&D London to do something about it. Perhaps someone […]
Harrod’s main restaurant, the venerable Georgian, has had a complete redesign. This “rendezvous of fashion and luxury”, perched on the Knightsbridge institution’s fourth floor, has been serving Afternoon Tea to well-heeled shoppers since 1913. As of 25 July it will do so in a more contemporary setting, which, we are told, blends classicism and modernism. […]
After almost coming to a fiery end back in February, Chelsea institution Daphne’s has finally made its comeback. The blaze at the Caprice group restaurant may have been confined to the kitchen vents, with the dining room only suffering smoke damage, but Daphne’s has nonetheless undergone a major refurbishment under designer Martin Brudnizki. This – the Caprice group […]
It may be a London classic, but Odette’s has gone and got a bold new look. Out with the white table linens and mirrors, and in with the leather banquettes and whitewashed brick. The Primrose Hill stalwart, which opened in 1978, has also added a chef’s kitchen table (as is de rigueur nowadays), and there is […]
