⦿ In The Observer, Jay Rayner reviewed Aquavit, the St James’s offshoot of an “award-garlanded” Swedish restaurant in New York – “And, oh boy, check out that swagger.” It turned out to be “a proper Nordic noir thriller but for all the wrong reasons… It’s altogether more Trump Tower than Wallander. Everything is shiny and golden […]
Chef Atul Kochhar of Benares – Mayfair’s well-known ‘nouvelle Indian’ – is turning the tables by launching his first restaurant to celebrate British food — and in a quintessentially English setting. Hawkyns opens on January 15 inside the marvellously traditional Crown Inn in Amersham. (It is named after Sir William Hawkyns, apparently a representative of the […]
Jamie Oliver is to close six of his Jamie’s Italian restaurants, his company blaming a “tough market” along with “post-Brexit pressures and unknowns” for the move. Is this one of the first examples of 2017 of under-performing businesses reaching for the Brexit ‘get out of jail free’ card? The closures are at Ludgate Hill in […]
Clare Smyth, often described as Britain’s leading woman chef, has signed a lease on a property in Notting Hill and will open her heavily anticipated new restaurant there this spring or summer. Smyth quit Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea’s Royal Hospital Road last April after almost 10 years at the helm – which made her the only woman […]
Moor Hall, the long-awaited new restaurant near Liverpool from Simon Rogan’s former right-hand man Mark Birchall, is now open for bookings from March 1 and may be serving meals before then. Birchall, who spent nine years at L’Enclume, Rogan’s ground-breaking gastro destination in Cumbria, has had to be patient while Moor Hall, a historic Grade II* property with […]
The Hawksmoor group has suffered its first public reverse with the announcement that the Stoke Newington branch of its Foxlow spinoff will close for business on January 14. The closure comes just weeks before the main Hawksmoor brand is scheduled to open its eighth branch in the prestigious location of Borough Market in Southwark. Founders Huw Gott and […]
Monty’s Deli, an east London market stall inspired by a grandfather’s love of traditional Jewish food, will move into a permanent site in a former Hoxton bakery in April following a successful crowdfunding campaign. The business will operate as a cross between a deli and a restaurant, serving deli classics such as bagels and Reuben sandwiches by […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed The Holy Birds in Shoreditch, which serves duck, goose and guinea fowl, “but mostly, to be honest, chicken“. The quality of the poultry was not to be questioned, but he was far from impressed by the cooking. “Sure, the skin is dark, but only in places. Elsewhere it’s soft and floppy. […]
Whether you think Brexit is long-prayed-for manna of deliverance, or merely fuel for delusional fruitcakes, it is time we all came together as a nation! And how better to herald in a new era of unity for 2017, than with a tub-thumping, red, white and blue, Top 10 of Great British Venues. The following top 10 are were […]
Theatreland favourite Joe Allen is to celebrate its 40th anniversary with an appropriately star-studded line-up of alumni and guests on Sunday January 29. Rowley Leigh will return to the pass in the kitchen where he started out, flanked by food writers Gizzi Erskine and Lisa Markwell, with TV personality Christopher Biggins meeting and greeting on the door and […]
