Here’s our weekly round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 28th January 2024 * The Evening Standard “Measured hits of palate-jolting unexpectedness.” Jimi Famurewa reviewed Sune, an antidote to the “wine-led sharing-plates restaurant” formula and “chef-led pretentiousness” usually seen in Hackney. (It’s pronounced “sooner” and comes from […]
Richard Caring is reportedly looking to cash in his stake in the 50-strong Ivy group of restaurants for a fee in the region of a billion pounds – while also planning to revive the iconic Le Caprice brand. According to the Sunday Times, HSBC began circulating marketing documents in the City last week to sound out […]
A West London arts space has opened a chic new Italian restaurant under the direction of highly rated chef Emanuele Pollini. The venture shares Ladbroke Hall, a former car factory from the early motoring era, with contemporary art and design operation Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Pollini at Ladbroke Hall occupies the vaulted lobby of the grand […]
A new Mediterranean restaurant taking inspiration from both its European and North African shores launches next week in Marylebone. Bellazul opens on Thursday 1 February in Blandford Street on the former site of Italian restaurant Il Baretto, with ex-Cecconi’s and 5 Hertford Street head chef Simone Serafini directing the kitchen. Dishes range from lobster spaghetti […]
A new neighbourhood bistro with a focus on natural wines is to open in Horsforth on the edge of Leeds next month. Bavette is the first joint venture from Yorkshire-born chef Sandy Jarvis and his husband, sommelier Clement Cousin (left & right in picture), who met 12 years ago working at London restaurant Terroirs. Sandy […]
Glaswegian restaurateur Nico Simeone is suing a landlord for £4.4million arising from the 2022 closure of the Liverpool branch of his Six by Nico after flood damage. In papers filed to the High Court, lawyers say repeated floods and mould in the waterfront building on Liverpool’s North John Street left the restaurant “malodorous and unhygienic” […]
Chef Tom Cenci is to revamp the public-facing neighbourhood restaurant on the ground floor of fashionable Fitzrovia private membership club Mortimer House next month. Mortimer House Kitchen will draw on Tom’s family summers spent in Piedmont and on the Amalfi coast, with an emphasis on fresh ingredients and family-style dining. The menu starts with a […]
Here’s our weekly round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 21 January 2024 ***** The Evening Standard Jimi Famurewa reviewed Kebhouze, the new Oxford Street kebab joint from Italian businessman and “internet personality” Gianluca Vacchi which claims to be the UK’s biggest “despite the fact 220-cover Green […]
Chef Claude Bosi is to open a new restaurant on Chelsea’s Fulham Road at the end of this month dedicated to the food of his native Lyons – and named in memory of his grandmother, Josephine. Serving French bistro classics alongside tradition Lyonnais specialities, Josephine is also Claude’s first joint business venture with his wife, Lucy. […]
Harden’s co-founder Peter Harden was a key contributor to a Radio 4 programme broadcast last weekend that examined the failure of Jamie Oliver’s restaurant chain Jamie’s Italian. Quoting from the annual Harden’s surveys, Peter said that the apparently successful group was failing to deliver the goods several years before it went bust. The first Jamie’s […]
