The Conran group is an enigma. Having masterfully ridden the restaurant boom of the ’90s, it remains by far the largest operator of ‘quality’ restaurants in town (and now also has operations in New York, Paris and Stockholm). It has achieved all this despite having developed a reputation in many quarters for ‘conveyor belt dining’. […]
The Victorian aristocracy regarded trade with horror, so Belgravia’s vast main squares contain only houses and churches. No restaurants, of course, as gentlemen dined in private houses or their clubs. No pubs, either: strictly for the servants, these were pokey places hidden away in the mews. And point of all this social history’ is that, […]
Consistent acclaim elsewhere inspired us to save Richard Corrigan revamped Theatreland veteran (1916) for a special business celebration. Initial impressions are indeed favourable: the creaky character of old has been given a facelift, giving the whole enterprise – from downstairs oyster bar to upstairs dining room – a confident veneer. Things started to go a […]
We’ve got used to restaurants which claim outlets in New York – or Paris – and London’. But the proud boast ‘Toulouse and London’ is a novelty. (Indeed, the only recent provincial-French incursion into the capital that springs to mind is by the Michelin-bedecked Pourcel brothers from Montpellier, whose West End opening W’sens is thought […]
This Pimlico side street spot has earned ‘hidden gem’ status among the capital’s restaurant cognoscenti. If you’ve never given it a go, there’s an excellent-value new set lunch here that’s a good reason to make the trip. At £35, and, with the exception of 12.5% service, it really does include everything, including water, half a […]
It is a truth universally acknowledged amongst London sophisticates that provincial city-centre restaurants must be second-rate. For many years this was indeed true. And for many of those years the branches of the Living Room chain to be found in many major cities have been well worth knowing about as the best of a mediocre […]
In deepest Holland Park, this new establishment occupies an intriguing space in a storybook London streetscape. The site was last a restaurant under the name of Orsino – it had a beautiful interior but was never quite good enough to survive in this rather hidden-away location. Isolation is less of a problem for the place’s […]
Please remove your shoes’, reads the sign at the door of Primrose Hill’s triyoga centre (which you find at the end of an obscure mews). It brought to mind an oriental temple, and just entering made your reviewer feel slightly virtuous. It also made me feel very out-of-shape. It was all to do with the […]
