Here’s a jumbo edition of our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the two weeks up to 15th October 2023; we’ve been busy writing UK Restaurants 2024! ***** The Guardian Last week, Grace Dent was in Edinburgh and ate a life-changing lunch at Tantra, “far and away the oddest restaurant […]
Dishoom is to open its latest branch next week – an all-day bar-café called Permit Room in Brighton, which officially launches on Wednesday 1 November, with a soft opening until then. It is the tenth branch of the chain which started out in London in 2010, but the first to be branded under a separate […]
Tech billionaire Larry Ellison has stepped in to revive the Eagle and Child, the Oxford pub famous as the preferred watering-hole of J.R.R. Tolkein, creator of The Lord of the Rings. The 17th-century pub has been closed since the Covid shutdown of 2020, and was reportedly being lined up for conversion into a hotel until […]
Upscale South African all-day café Tashas opens its first European branch next month, in the Battersea Power Station development overlooking the River Thames. Natasha Sideris launched the original Tashas in Johannesburg in 2005, and now has 15 branches across South Africa and another six in the UEA. The brand prides itself on snazzy interior design […]
Modern Greek restaurant Ampéli has closed down and its Fitzrovia site has been taken over by a Ukrainian-owned Spanish restaurant, Boca a Boca. Ampéli was opened in 2020 by photographer Jenny Pagnoni, taking inspiration from modern wine-focused restaurants in Athens, and won plenty of press support from the FT, Guardian, Standard and Independent – and from […]
Radical chef Michael O’Hare is to re-brand his theatrical Leeds restaurant The Man Behind The Curtain, relaunching it next year under a new guise as the surf shack-themed Psycho Sandbar. He opened The Man Behind The Curtain in 2014, winning huge acclaim (and Leeds’s only star from the tyre folk) and a name for himself […]
Chef and writer Dipna Anand, from the dynasty behind Southall’s famous Indian restaurant Brilliant, is to open a 150-cover venue in Milton Keynes next month. Dipna Anand Kitchen & Bar is in the new Unity Place development, and will have its own in-house micro-brewery operated by TOAST Ale. The venture is in association with the […]
Restaurant group D&D London has struck a deal with industry investors which is designed to secure its future, according to reports this week. The deal, which values the company at around £60million, involves Calveton, the owner of Byron hamburgers, and Breal Capital, which recently took over Vinoteca wine bars to add to the three brewers […]
Top Scottish chef Martin Wishart’s Loch Lomond outpost is to close permanently, just four months after its relaunch. Cameron House resort hotel announced that its flagship fine-dining restaurant, Tamburrini & Wishart, will close on 31st October. The restaurant was the latest incarnation of Martin’s long association with Cameron House, where he first opened the restaurant […]
Matt Appleton and Jess Blackstone, the pair behind Highbury-based Fink’s Salt & Sweet cafés, are launching a new restaurant in the area next week. Saltine will offer coffee, pastries and grab-and-go bites during the day, but operate as a full-scale restaurant in the evening, with a menu from former St John Marylebone chef Phil Wood […]
