On the sixth floor of the city-centre Urbis centre, a smart modern bar/brasserie – on the former site of Mont (RIP) – offering pleasant but unremarkable cooking, and a smart and discreet setting perhaps most obviously suited to a business lunch. Well, it couldn’t be said we’re lagging on this one. We find ourselves sitting […]
The former Balham Bar & Grill, modestly revamped, and now owned by Sam Harrison of Sam’s Brasserie (W4) fame; it remains a friendly and stylish spot, but the food is still rather an incidental attraction. Nick Jones is one of the most successful club-proprietors of our day, and his Soho Houses – recently acquired by […]
The most satisfactory to date of the ‘budget-Gordon’ establishments, this huge Victorian boozer in Maida Vale appears the least effortful of the trio, and – perhaps in consequence – succeeds best; it struck us as effectively a large and smart – but in some ways quite standard – pub dining room, above a bar whose […]
Opposite Waterloo, an odd contemporary brasserie with an unusually wide-ranging – and rather confusing – ‘offer’; on our experience, we’d recommend it on its practical merits – perhaps as an obvious venue for supper before the neighbouring Old Vic, or if passing through the railway station – rather than as a destination in its own […]
Gordon Ramsay’s relaunch of a famous Chelsea bistro, now decorated in a rather chilly style somewhat resembling a ’50s kitchen; it offers food of good-to-variable quality in a setting we found it impossible to like. ‘Isn’t this the sort of stuff people rip out?’, said our guest. We don’t think so: if you found a […]
From the eponymous chef, a superior local bistro, on the same Battersea site that has seen off two very superior local bistros in recent years; while we enjoyed our visit, we left unsure whether the formula is strong enough to shake off the jinx. Tom Ilic is a chef with a good following on Planet […]
Overlooking the tourist hell of Covent Garden Market, a small but airy first-floor café, offering a good overall experience – particularly by the standards of cultural-centre dining facilities – albeit at prices which are arguably on the high side for an establishment of its type. Even in the tourist hell of Covent Garden, you can […]
A no-nonsense English bistro, near Camden Town tube; a friendly sort of place, it offers plain cooking – in a style which, until recently, might have been called ‘domestic’ – at reasonable prices. First, in the early ’90s, we had what we now call gastropubs. By the late-’90s, a retro-style of English cooking was beginning […]
Now associated with the nearby Malmaison Hotel, this smartly revamped pub, near Smithfield Market, offers a good line in solid food (and drink); with its notably friendly service, it seems quickly to be attracting an enthusiastic local following. The Fox & Anchor – in a charming enclave by Charterhouse Square – has always been a […]
A swish but surprisingly comforting addition to the über-chef’s international empire, this very Gallic Mayfair dining room offers a surprisingly unintimidating haute-cuisine experience, that’s highly enjoyable (if, of course, extremely expensive). Other early reviews of this Mayfair chamber have been so mixed that we approached this latest outpost of Alain Ducasse’s global empire with some […]
