On the former Chelsea site of Aubergine, a welcoming and elegantly-styled new Italian restaurant; the cooking, though, is tame. Honey, we forgot the food! Are we imagining it, or is there a bit of a spate of restaurant at the moment which are very nice in every way’ except that the food is entirely unremarkable? […]
A grandly housed Japanese restaurant, just south of Trafalgar Square; standards struck us as solid, rather than anything more, but good bento (and so on) deals make this a handy daytime option – by night, its ambience would make it suitable for a not-too-serious business meeting. There’s a whole new quarter opening up in the […]
Elegantly housed in Battersea Square, a smartly turned-out brasserie where food and service don’t quite live up to appearances; for oyster-lovers, though, this may be a place worth seeking out. Initial reactions to this smart Battersea brasserie are largely of surprise. What is this elegant establishment doing, well, here? Brasseries – arguably the most useful […]
Grandly housed in the hotel adjacent to Victoria Station, this Cantonese dining room offers airy surroundings and good-value dim sum (and lunch) menus, making it an ideal daytime rendezvous; by night, it looks set to appeal particularly to the business market. Thanks to the re-launch of St Pancras, railway station hotel refurbishment is rather topical […]
Just off Regent Street, a potentially useful brasserie, under the same ownership as Ottolenghi, and in a broadly similar (if more ambitious) style; format and location are undoubtedly very handy, but these attractions are undermined by high prices. Upmarket deli/pâtisserie Ottolenghi has a legions of fans, many of whom have been keenly awaiting the opening […]
Bringing the style of New York’s hip Meatpacking District to Leicester Square, a glamorous establishment which brings a lot of style (with prices to match) to a menu inspired by the spicy street food of the Orient. Jean-Georges Vongerichten is, arguably, the most influential chef/restaurateur in the world. He runs a world-class French restauraurants (Jean-Georges, […]
A former inn, prettily located on Wimbledon Common, whose interior has been converted to a large, contemporary-style dining room offering rich cooking of high quality; though many aspects of the operation are individually impressive, we left feeling that the experience’š in these admittedly early days, did not entirely ‘gel’. What could be more English than […]
Near Brompton Cross, a relaunch of Papillon as a good all-round-Italian; in fact little, except the cuisine, seems really to have changed from the former régime. Don’t they have enough Italian restaurants round Brompton Cross? Undaunted, the owners of Papillon – a rather useful French restaurant, we always thought – have recently re-named it, and […]
Bang opposite the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, a former pub that’s now a offshoot – in what’s essentially a high-quality bistro format – of the Salt Yard/Dehesa tapas empire; its attractions for Covent Garden lunchers and theatre-goers are self-evident. Until recently, the rule was pretty simple: Covent Garden restaurants were for dumb tourists and theatre-goers. […]
Hidden-away in Knightsbridge, a small and genuine new Gallic bistro, of particular interest as a lunchtime destination. A small, Gallic bistro where the prices seem very reasonable? In Knightsbridge? In the very shadow of the Candy brothers’ ‘One Hyde Park’ colossus? The marketing messages that drew us to this little newcomer, hidden-away in a pedestrian […]
