Our mission is remarkably simple. To tell it how it is!
Polpetto, Russel Norman’s “expressive and experimental” sister restaurant to Polpo, has relaunched with a new head chef. Anthea Stephenson has joined the Soho restaurant having honed her skills at the River Cafe, The Jugged Hare and Sketch, and has devised an entirely new menu designed for sharing and feasting. The chef has also brought with […]
Casual Dining Group CDG, the company behind high street chains such as Café Rouge, La Tasca, and Bella Italia, has called in a restructuring adviser in a bid to lobby landlords into lowering rents, according to The Times. CDG has closed more than 40 restaurants over the past two years, but said it continues to […]
Asma Khan is to open a new restaurant in Soho. Calcutta Canteen by Darjeeling Express will be a Bengali-inspired cafe, serving bread buns called pau, traditional teas, and Indian cakes. Khan, who next year will become the first British chef to appear on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, will be running Calcutta Canteen on until February 2019. As a […]
Worst performance recorded in guide’s 28 years Texture highest-scoring restaurant for food Shift from red meat to vegetarianism The highest-ever number of restaurants closed in London in the last 12 months. That’s the conclusion of the 28th edition of Harden’s London Restaurants and its equivalent apps, published on 8th November, which record 117 closures: the […]
1251, London N1 Jimi Famurewa for The Evening Standard ventured to Islington and James Cochran’s new restaurant, who has “once again plundered his Scottish and Saint Vincent heritage (plus the influence of a childhood in Whitstable)”. A “Kentish-Scots-Caribbean” blend may sound like “the stuff of a disastrous ‘fusion cuisine’”, but in Cochran’s hand ” it […]
In case you missed the furore of the week, William Sitwell, editor of Waitrose Food magazine, ‘resigned’ after an ill-advised response to a vegan freelancer. Selene Nelson had pitched Sitwell a “plant based meal series” to which he responded thus: “Hi Selene. “Thanks for this. “How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. […]
Former Babbo head chef Carlo Scotto is to launch his first solo restaurant, Xier. It will open in Marylebone in December this year. According to Hot Dinners, Xier’s cuisine will be a “take on modern European with a global influence”, echoing Scotto’s time with Corbin & King. Though there will be an Italian leaning – […]
Four months after steak chain Gaucho filed for administration and sacrificed its CAU brand in order to stay afloat, the 24-year-group is pushing a new chapter under the guidance of M Restaurants CEO Martin Williams. Williams also happens to be the ex-MD of Gaucho (which he left to found M Restaurants), so presumably still knows his […]
Shake Shack’s UK operation has posted a £7.7m loss in its end of year results for 2017. Diverse Dining, the UK brand operator for the US burger chain, saw loss before tax rise by £3.2m from the £4.5m loss reported in 2016. The top line is more encouraging than the bottom line however. Revenue more than […]
Barely a couple of months after Brigadiers opened at Bloomberg Arcade, the JKS Restaurants team is back with another concept. This time, it’s Berenjak, a classic take on an Iranian kebab house – more specifically, the hole-in-wall establishments of busy, bustling cities such as Tehran. The group’s Karam, Jyo and Sunaina Sethi are working with founder […]
