It’s never seems like the hottest idea when a new restaurant’s menu looks conceptualised to within an inch of its life. Few restaurateurs have the energy to get every aspect of an opening right, and it just seems to show a warped sense of priorities. This new Spanish outfit near King’s Cross puts its menus […]
If anyone wants to see how London restaurants have evolved over the past two decades, they could do much worse than a brief walking tour of the various branches of the Olivo franchise. The original restaurant near Victoria, offering Sardinian specialities, seemed almost exotic when it opened back in 1991. Its tasty cooking still makes […]
We’d heard some good things about the sandwiches and smoothies at the Krüger take-away operations, so we thought its eat-in dining facility might be worth checking out. Part of a privately-run venture, we hoped it might stand out against the nondescript backdrop of dining on the Wharf (which is almost invariably overhung by the dead […]
This prettily-located chippy now loudly proclaims the formerly little-known fact that it was established in 1939. It is only very recently, however – since its acquisition by the Embassy (Mayfair nightclub) people – that it has got in touch with its heritage side. The battered former appearance of the place (ho ho) has now been […]
Clerkenwell is not just one of London’s more attractive emerging areas, it is also home – not entirely coincidentally – to a good number of the better mid-price restaurants. So there’s clearly plenty of custom round here. If, however, a new concept doesn’t immediately click – witness the defunct Xich-lo, a few doors from the […]
Voted best restaurant in the Wharf’, says the website of this big and busy Canary Wharf oriental (which has recently emerged from a major refurbishment). Well, they’re certainly getting bums on seats: the large, ground floor pan-Asian brasserie – a good mates’ get-together kind of place – has a nice buzz to it. Today, though, […]
In London, great purpose-built public dining rooms – of the nature of New York’s Four Seasons, or the Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon – are rare. Our top contender is arguably the lofty central chamber of the Royal Festival Hall, which benefits from wonderful proportions, as well as a spectacular river view. Like […]
The ‘Zinc’ brand – the most avowedly mass-market of the concepts to come out of the Conran dream factory, and one of the worst – was sold off last year to the Individual Restaurant Company. IRC promptly closed the Fulham branch. And now, the former flagship site, just off Regent Street, has been re-launched under […]
