Westminster – in the strict sense of the area around the Abbey – has traditionally been home to the back offices of church and state, plus a surprisingly large number of flats for what used to be called the working classes. It doesn’t sound like fertile restaurant-territory, and it isn’t. The past few years, though, […]
Retro seems to be coming back into fashion in the world of dining out. One aspect is a renewed interest in French cuisine in general, and old-style Gallic restaurants in particular. Another throwback is the resurgence of the supper club, of which recent examples, down Piccadilly way, include the Cuckoo and Pigalle clubs. Apart from […]
In recent times, the site of the restaurant we review today has been both an Est! Est! Est! and a Caffé Uno. Not promising for a place that’s set its sights on the ‘fine dining’ market, you might think. For reasons that are hard to pin down, history has demonstrated that it’s remarkably difficult to […]
If media is the circus of the age, Nick Jones is one of its ringmasters. His empire stretches from his HQ at Soho House- via restaurants in Mayfair, Notting Hill and, er, Tooting, plus a country house in the Cotswolds (Babington House) – to an oh-so-hip club in New York’s Meatpacking District. Come Oscar time, […]
Today we record impressions from our first-time – shame! – visit to the home of the UK’s most famously funky ‘three-star’ chef, Heston Blumenthal OBE. From London, take the Maidenhead train and then a ten-minute cab ride. If you’re going to spend this much money – and, make no mistake, you are – you might […]
Reviewing Moroccan restaurants is a real challenge. Everyone knows know that the menu is going to consist of the usual starters, followed by a choice of tajines and cous cous, with pastries for pudding. Not much mileage there for the poor scribe. And everyone knows that the interior is going to be in the dark […]
It’s stressful choosing a restaurant for friends. If you write about restaurants for a living, then mates are not generally especially forgiving when you take them somewhere that’s rubbish. This Indian café on Hammersmith’s scruffy main drag certainly doesn’t impress visually. With its tiny shop-conversion premises, I could see the thought bubbles over my guests’ […]
Damned in this column last October, the Mayfair offshoot of Rowley’s steakhouse closed a few months later. The site has now been taken over by multiple restaurateur Claudio Pulze. He came to public attention a dozen or so years ago for his involvement in A-Z Restaurants. (The ‘Z’ is Zafferano, still one of London’s better […]
