We’ve got used to restaurants which claim outlets in New York – or Paris – and London’. But the proud boast ‘Toulouse and London’ is a novelty. (Indeed, the only recent provincial-French incursion into the capital that springs to mind is by the Michelin-bedecked Pourcel brothers from Montpellier, whose West End opening W’sens is thought […]
This Pimlico side street spot has earned ‘hidden gem’ status among the capital’s restaurant cognoscenti. If you’ve never given it a go, there’s an excellent-value new set lunch here that’s a good reason to make the trip. At £35, and, with the exception of 12.5% service, it really does include everything, including water, half a […]
It is a truth universally acknowledged amongst London sophisticates that provincial city-centre restaurants must be second-rate. For many years this was indeed true. And for many of those years the branches of the Living Room chain to be found in many major cities have been well worth knowing about as the best of a mediocre […]
In deepest Holland Park, this new establishment occupies an intriguing space in a storybook London streetscape. The site was last a restaurant under the name of Orsino – it had a beautiful interior but was never quite good enough to survive in this rather hidden-away location. Isolation is less of a problem for the place’s […]
Please remove your shoes’, reads the sign at the door of Primrose Hill’s triyoga centre (which you find at the end of an obscure mews). It brought to mind an oriental temple, and just entering made your reviewer feel slightly virtuous. It also made me feel very out-of-shape. It was all to do with the […]
A seasonal note arrives from the Editor. Enough of the foie gras and caviar, boys, it rants, what the readers want to know about at this time of year is healthy stuff. Hmmm. Perhaps, we thought, the cafe at this urban spa might fit the bill. The website promises ‘healthy food that makes you feel […]
Until recently this Theatreland spot was a commendable Australasian restaurant, Osia. Cynics said it was too good for a prime West End site, and they turned out to be right. The owner then had a flirtation with an American formula (the Broadway Diner) but it didn’t last long either. Owners Majiv el Ghzal and Yassir […]
There’s no Sheldon Square in the A-Z, or on streetmap.co.uk. All I could tell from the Yakitoria press release was that it was at the heart of the ginmormous new development that looms over the A40 by Paddington Station. Expecting a faceless corporate jungle, I was pleasantly amazed by the whole area. You leave the […]
He may have had something of a ‘rolling stone’ career, but Tom Ilic is one of the darlings of London restaurant critics – some still speak breathlessly of his New End in Hampstead, which shone brilliantly, for all of five minutes. More recently, he has cooked at Bonds, in the heart of the City – […]
