Here’s our regular summary of what the national and local restaurant critics have been writing about in the week ending 26 December 2021. This is the last proper Review of the Reviews of the year, it’s a short but packed edition, with the ‘best ofs’ still trickling in (Marina and Grace delivered theirs last week, […]

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The trio behind long-running Birmingham city centre restaurant Opus, which closed down in the face of pandemic losses after 15 years in May, have launched a new venture in Edgbaston, appropriately named Chapter. Ann Tonks, Ben Ternent and Irene Allan (pictured above) say the new venue, in Greenfield Crescent, Edgbaston Village, will focus on top-quality […]

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A new sustainable seafood venture, Off The Hook, is scheduled to open in Wapping on January 6 as a joint venture from chef Neil Wagner (pictured) and fish supplier Shaun Henderson. The restaurant will offer takeaway as well as sit-down meals and also have a “fish butchery” specialising in dry-aged fish. Headline dishes will include […]

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Mano Mayfair, a new restaurant offering “the vibrancy of Latin America with the unbridled glamour of late 1950s St Tropez”, is scheduled to open in Heddon Street before Christmas, although the return of the pandemic restrictions may have thrown the exact date into doubt. The concept comes from entrepreneur Alexis Colette and Romain Fargette, who […]

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Here’s our regular summary of what the national and local restaurant critics have been writing about in the week ending 12 December 2021. ***** The Evening Standard Jimi Famurewa made his “first, long-overdue trip to Rules in Covent Garden” to enjoy the “glittering, timewarp atmosphere that would serve as the perfect way to tie a […]

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Star chef James Knappett has teamed up with his backers JKS (Gymkhana, Hoppers) and publican Dominic Jacobs (The Running Horse, Mayfair) to open their second London pub in the space of six months. The George in Fitzrovia is a beautifully restored grand Victorian Grade II-listed pub with an Italianate corner site frontage. It is open […]

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Sake No Hana, the smart Japanese restaurant occupying an unusual Grade II-listed Modernist building in St James’s, has been quietly closed down by its owners, the Hakkasan group, bringing to an end its 13-year run. Opened in 2008 by Jamie Barber of Mayfair’s Hush and his business partner Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard, […]

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