Here’s our regular summary of what the national and local restaurant critics have been writing about in the week ending 6 March 2022. ***** The Observer “The strength of a country’s food culture is not defined by a handful of gilded gastro-palaces… but by the presence of those places you’d keep going to repeatedly, because […]

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Deliveroo has quietly opened its first restaurant – an anonymous-looking pizzeria called Pizza Paradiso in Swiss Cottage, London – with the ostensible aim of delivering the company insights into how restaurants operate. The fast-growing meal-delivery operation was founded in London in 2013 and now operates internationally with backing from Amazon, which bought a 16% stake three […]

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Albert’s Schloss, the Manchester-based mock-Bavarian castle devoted to beer, rib-sticking food and Alpine good times, is to open in Liverpool’s busy Bold Street, taking over Radiator House, a six-storey Art Deco former food market and gas showroom. Roy Ellis of Mission Mars says he plans to spend £3m on a complete refurbishment, with a view […]

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South African-based affordable seafood brand Ocean Basket has opened its first UK branch in Bromley, southeast London, targeting the growing global appetite for fish and seafood. Peter ‘Fats’ Lazarides (pictured) and his brother George opened their first restaurant in Pretoria – more than 300 miles from the nearest coast – in 1995. There are now more […]

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Mãos, the acclaimed experimental restaurant in Shoreditch, is to close “in its current form” at the end of April – an announcement that possibly leaves the door ajar for a next step. Part of design and fashion entrepreneur James Brown’s Blue Mountain venture in Redchurch Street, Mãos opened four years ago under Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes […]

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