It’s not often you get to describe waiters as “looking like refugees from Star Trek”, but the styling of this hotel dining room (and its staff) used to be a case study in appalling design. After its recent revamp, we therefore approached it with some anticipation: would it be hilarious, or simply bad? But it […]
China is taking over. Well, if futurologists are to believed. But you’d be hard pushed to guess judged by the standards of your average Chinese restaurant. The clichéd chow churned out by so many native representatives of the People’s Republic gives little hint of the rich variety of one of the world’s greatest cuisines. The […]
It’s not just food quality alone, of course, which makes a good restaurant, Other top features include: an interesting location; cool design; and a maybe a sense of adventure. If those are the sorts of things that float your boat, hasten along to the South Bank, and seek out this newcomer on the second floor […]
Without much in the way of publicity, this new Mexican venture was already doing good business on the couple of weekday lunchtimes when we visited, soon after opening. Perhaps it had something to do with the handy West End location. Just one minute from the Strand, it’s only just far enough from Covent Garden Market […]
Not often do you get four national newspapers reviewing the same new restaurant on the same weekend. All raves too. Must be something special going on. Bungs? No way: with the price of a bent review starting around £10k (according to one leading critic), costs would quickly become excessive, No, the reason is that La […]
Anticipation in the foodie world has been at fever pitch. Could this Mayfair newcomer possibly equal the remarkable value which has been all but universally acclaimed at Arbutus, its Soho parent? As we entered the paneled premises formerly known as the Drones Club, the Arbutus team – Anthony Demetre and Will Smith – were both […]
Opening an Indian chain restaurant in London is evidently no piece of cake. This is after all, the city blessed with more quality subcontinental establishments than anywhere else in the world. And, to make it worse for would-be chain tycoons, some of the very best are also some of the cheapest. Think Lahore Kebab, New […]
Over-design is one of the curses of the modern restaurant world, so it was a joy to enter Patrick Molloy’s new solo venture, by Guildhall. It’s almost a parody of plainness. Not perhaps quite to the extent of the epic Victorian stalwart Sweetings – where Molloy was formerly maitre d’ – but more in a […]
For some reason, new-wave Old English food is something you normally only find in pubs. There is of course a famous exception – the founder of the movement, St John of Smithfield. But the vast majority of St John’s imitators and inspirees are pubs, or dining rooms attached to pubs. The logic of this (or […]
