London, Peruvian Restaurant Guide

“Absolutely delicious” Peruvian food (“we took our foodie friends, who loved it too!”) features in practically all reports on Arjun Waney’s glossy haunts in Mayfair and near Bank (as well as Paris, Dubai, Mykonos…). There’s a lot of feeling even amongst fans, though, that they’re just “not worth the money any more” (“yes it’s good, but at these prices it should be. Perhaps it’s just their rents but spending just short of £200/head and being rushed off the table left me underwhelmed. I could rave about the wondrous dishes, but not sure it’s worth it…”)

Zooming up to the 38th floor of the Heron Tower in one of Europe’s fastest lifts… looking out with a cocktail on an open terrace overlooking the scrapers of the City, it’s easy to get swept up by the glamour of the original, “buzzy” branch of this US-based chain. And its popular WC2 spin-off is also “always a pleasure to visit”: looking out onto the back of the Royal Opera House from the huge terrace on the top of Covent Garden Market. Fans say the luxe, Japanese/South American fusion cuisine in both locations – taquitos, sushi, steaks, samba rolls, black cod from the robata – is “delicious and remarkably inventive” too. But ratings for it have sunk post-Covid, and while pricing here has always been toppy, there is a growing gripe that “food which is average at best is accompanied by a bill that’s distinctly not average!”