Where would you take England’s greatest living ex-Prime Minister for lunch the day after her 80th birthday party? Admittedly, this is not a question one faces all that often, but the answer presented itself when – half way through our meal – Lady Thatcher made her entrance into this grand and very English dining room […]
There are many restaurants and bars overlooking Canary Wharf from West India Quay. Their large open-air terraces were full of happy punters, the sunny lunchtime I visited. Except, sods law dictated, for the dining room of this new Marriott hotel – one of the proud runners-up in Time Out’s recent Alfresco Tables Dining Award. It […]
Dine? ‘Lunch’ might be a more appropriate name for this new restaurant on the edge of the City. (‘Eat’, of course, is already taken.) Presumably the person – committee? – who chose the name did so because they thought it seemed very ‘elemental’, very ‘designed’, and very ‘now’. Dine is none of the above. It […]
Plain and simple steak ‘n’ chips – arguably France’s top contribution to world gastronomy – is done very well indeed at this Marylebone newcomer. Don’t go expecting anything else, though- so far as main courses go, that’s all there is. There aren’t any starters, either, unless you include a small lettuce and walnut salad (compris). […]
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 […]
