Kew may have world famous gardens, but its restaurant scene is of purely local renown. There are some honourable exceptions (The Glasshouse next to the station, for example). But still the area lacks a good, easy-going hang out for weekend lounging after a trip to the nearby displays of horticulture. This refurb of a monolithic […]
Artistry in cooking can be overdone. Sometimes the occasion demands good meat, good wine, good cheese, that’s it. This seemed like an appropriate formula for lunch with an old school chum, now head of PR for a large fund managers. Knowing him not to be much of a style victim, I felt relatively relaxed about […]
Curry is great. Noodles too. And sushi can be splendid’ if you’re in the mood. Such dishes retain their ethnic status, but are so commonplace they are hardly exotic nowadays. But, you don’t have to be a fully paid-up member of the BNP to feel that sometimes you want the sort of comforting mongrel fare […]
Have you brought us to a dump?’, asked one of my fellow diners asked as we approached this Hornsey newcomer. Its car park does admittedly have some not especially attractive railway-track views. But hey, at least you can park. And, as you approach the impressive Edwardian brick exterior, things start to look up. In fact, […]
Pimlico – so near, yet so mysterious. I’m not so much talking about the bit near Sloane Square which many people think of as an extension of Chelsea – where La Poule au Pot on Pimlico Green is one of the capital’s longest-running success-stories – but the bit over the railway tracks, in real (Passport […]
How do you PR a new restaurant? Having a really famous TV-chef as a backer isn’t a bad start: that Rick Stein is investing in one of his ex-employees at this Chiswick newcomer has drummed up a lot of interest from day one. Given Stein’s involvement, you might perhaps expect a seafood place, and one […]
Where do you lunch your editor? Should you – say, like us – find yourself writing a restaurant column for a daily business newspaper, and have the pleasure and honour of taking your editor out for lunch, where do you go? That was the question. Not somewhere too flashy – obviously, expenses must be kept […]
Some restaurants are just really worth knowing about. Not because they’re necessarily the brightest or the best – more that they’re in a handy location and reliably good enough. (They mustn’t be TOO madly popular either: no good if they’re always booked out.) Cocoon is such a place. On the location front, it’s difficult to […]
