On the Pimlico/Belgravia fringe site formerly called Vivezza (RIP), an English restaurant where the food is often well cooked, but where prices seem unjustified by either the cuisine or the level of comfort. A restaurateur opening new premises never has a blank sheet of paper. He can’t do much about the size and shape of […]
A less pricey successor to the wacky Ambassade de L’Ile; it’s a great improvement all round, but in current conditions the style is still perhaps touch too chicly-Gallic and upmarket, even for South Kensington. L’Ambassade de L’Ile was a great exercise in value destruction. Huge amounts of money (some £2m) were spent to convert the […]
An intimate St James’s hotel dining room – now home to William Drabble, Ramsay’s successor at Aubergine – that’s attracted much press praise; our lunchtime visit, however, was underwhelming. Perhaps we’re just feeling unseasonally grumpy, or maybe we’ve been serially unlucky, but this new St James’s fine dining room is the second restaurant we’ve visited […]
In a hugely handy St James’s location, a Gallic brasserie where the cooking – if not, necessarily, the service – seems to be flourishing under the new independent ownership. Our lunchtime visit to this St James’s brasserie – recently bought out by the on-site management – offered an interesting opportunity for a comparison with a […]
In the heart of Soho, a clubby Soho House group dining room serving simple English food realised to a consistently high standard; a first-day visit found an establishment already remarkably well into its swing. How does Richard Caring do it? As restaurant groups get bigger, there is – nearly two decades of Harden’s research suggests […]
An Italian successor to Fitzrovia’s Passione (RIP), offering interesting dishes – often with a Sicilian twist – in unadorned surroundings; charming service makes this an establishment it’s very hard not to like, but the realisation of dishes on our visit was a little up-and-down. Drawn by a rave review elsewhere, we hastened along to the […]
A top-quality Galvin brothers ‘bistro de luxe’-style operation, in a wonderful Shoreditch building whose scale and location arguably call for something a little less traditional; for City suits, though, it looks set to be a ‘wow’. Chris and Jeff Galvin are heroes of the restaurant scene. The quality and value of the Gallic bistro fare […]
On a Kensington site that’s had a somewhat chequered history of late, a smart but somewhat subdued bistro offering food English dishes of very high quality, under the auspices of Square chef Philip Howard. Philip Howard is one of those blameless chefs who beavers away doing what chefs are supposed to do – for younger […]
A smart and pleasant – if not hugely atmospheric – Italian, offering a good all-round formula, at prices which fully reflect its Mayfair location; the establishment seems most evidently suitable as a lunchtime destination. We’ve lost count of the number of times we tried – unsuccessfully – to to get into Babbo. Not this new […]
A worthy offshoot of the Thos. Cubitt, this large Pimlico/Belgravia fringe newcomer is a similarly smart and useful bistro-cum-boozer; a first-week inspection found it already doing good business. Belgravia was long a pretty deadbeat place to eat, but it’s improved a lot in recent years, in part thanks to the young team that first established […]
