A plain but quite charming Scandinavian restaurant, hard by South Kensington tube; we found the food unexciting, but of generally good quality. Urged on by a rave review elsewhere, we finally got around to visiting this Scandinavian restaurant, which opened a few months ago, just over the road from South Kensington tube station. We’re glad […]
A Chinese ‘tapas’ bar, in a calming Soho setting that feels like a Japanese tea house – the concept may be unusual, but this offshoot of the famous Bar Shu is already making quite a name for the quality of its interesting light-bite cuisine. There’s usually a strong fellow feeling between two restaurants under common […]
In Earl’s Court – an area lacking in gastropubs – a conversion of the former Coleherne public house, which attracts a good following in spite of offering food that tends to incidental. Earl’s Court – birthplace, as it happens, of Harden’s – is not the place it was. Much colour used to be provided by […]
A small and tightly-packed East End dining room, entered via an art gallery, where Maria Elia (who has a bit of a name, from her time at the Delfina Studio Café) cooks up food of proper restaurant quality. London’s galleries and museums tend to offer little of interest on the food front. Part of the […]
A noisy but high-quality basement trattoria, on the former Marylebone site of Giusto (RIP). It’s almost better not to know that this new Italian restaurant is owned by Arjun Waney, whose Zuma-based empire also incorporates discreet Mayfair celeb-magnet La Petite Maison. The newcomer – which doesn’t seem set on becoming a ‘scene’ at all – […]
Near Carnaby Street, a would-be trendy hotel dining room rather lacking in character; bills can be kept quite reasonable, though, and the location is undoubtedly handy. The phrase ‘Soho boutique hotel’ conjures up certain expectations, so we’d have to admit we found our arrival at this small (30-room) newcomer a bit of a let-down. We […]
Near Piccadilly Circus (and also in Westfield), the best self-service diner concept we’ve come across; the fare is varied but all-vegetarian – for the sort of lighter meals to which the place is best suited, we don’t think that’s much of a disadvantage. ‘Swiss’, ‘vegetarian’ and ‘concept’ – can there be three words more destined […]
The elegant former Pimlico premises of L’Incontro, smartened up and relaunched as an Italian restaurant rather like the one which went before – not bad, but expensive for what it is. The premises of L’Incontro – the former Italian restaurant on this Pimlico site – are something of an ’80s period piece. And in a […]
In the backwoods of Fulham, a game-specialist gastropub offering many dishes of ‘restaurant’ quality; our experience, however, suggests that the more robust, and more obviously ‘gastropub-style’ dishes, may be preferable. The gastropub fast seems to be becoming the default London restaurant format. The term, ever more encompassing, can be applied to any food service operation […]
Not far from South Kensington tube, a large new (late-2008) pizzeria that’s quickly become very popular. OK, they seated a table for 20 just before we came into this large pizzeria. But the number of would-be Saturday lunchers we saw turned away suggests that this South Kensington newcomer would have been jam-packed anyway. So what […]
