Restaurateur Martin Kuczmarski is launching two new retro-inspired Italian venues in quick succession – Martino’s in Sloane Square, Chelsea and Dover Street Counter, a few doors down from his flagship off Piccadilly. In both cases Martin has followed the low-profile but high-impact process that proved such a success last year with Dover Street, one of the […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 23rd November 2025 The Guardian The Shaston Arms, Soho Grace Dent was resolutely unimpressed by a pub that failed to bridge the gap between being an “old-school boozer” and “a cool restaurant that serves food at premium prices” – a […]
Calabrian-born chef Francesco Mazzei this week opened his latest restaurant – Mezzogiorno in the Corinthia hotel, just off Trafalgar Square. Francesco made his name in London with L’Anima, which opened on the edge of the City in 2008. He followed up by launching Radici, Sartoria and Fiume with D&D London (now Evolv), and ran a six-month […]
Our round-up of what the nations restaurant critics were writing about in the week to 16th November 2025 The Guardian 2210 by Natty Can Cook, Herne Hill Grace Dent enjoyed one of her best meals of the year at an “utterly classy” take on Caribbean cuisine from Nathaniel Mortley, a chef who worked at Oblix and […]
A theatrical live-fire restaurant with an open kitchen launched in Spitalfields this week, a few minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street station – a first dining venue from publican and music festival entrepreneur Rob Star of Electric Star pubs. Firestarter shares an entrance on Middlesex Street with its stablemate The Star by Liverpool Street pub/bar next door, […]
Lara Boglione, whose family owns Petersham Nurseries on the edge of Richmond Park, opened a Florentine wine bar/restaurant in Notting Hill this week with her Tuscan winemaker husband, Giovanni Mazzei. Named Trogolo – Italian for ‘trough’, after the communal stone water troughs found across Tuscany – the Westbourne Grove venue promises “a slice of Florence […]
Three new restaurants that celebrate regional Thai cuisine are opening in London in quick succession this month – all with the word ‘khao’, meaning rice or a casual meal, in their name. First up this week is Khao-So-i, just off Oxford Circus, the first international opening from chef Win Srinavakool and his wife Por Haruethai Noicharoen […]
An ambitious restaurant in a landmark building with a large terrace overlooking the Thames opens this weekend beside Richmond Bridge in leafy southwest London. Tower House, from the team behind Gold in Notting Hill, promises ‘modern Mediterranean food with old-world Italian roots reminiscent of home, in a spirit of relaxed care and warmth’. It is […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 9th November 2025 The Guardian Lilibet’s, Mayfair Grace Dent anointed her “new favourite restaurant”: Australian chef and Bone Daddies founder Ross Shonhan’s seafood specialist at the birthplace of the late QEII (fka ‘Lilibet’) – whose “turbo-chintz, Las Vegas-style royalist fever dream” […]
Chongqing noodle queens Charlene Liu and Liu Qian have opened the third branch of their cult brand Liu Xiaomian, inside new Czech-beer specialist pub The Stranded, opposite Charing Cross station. The duo have attracted a devoted fan base for their good-value wheat noodles (xiaomian), glass noodles and wontons served with ultra-spicy meat or vegan toppings […]
