Our mission is remarkably simple. To tell it how it is!
Chef Gordon Ker is opening an offshoot of his hip Soho chophouse Blacklock in the City of London next month. Blacklock wins praise in the latest Harden’s Survey for “the best chops in London”. The new, bigger venue will have an extended version of the same menu, featuring char-grilled meat from Cornish farmer-butcher Philip Warren, served on flatbread, […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed Louie Louie in Camberwell, a daytime cafe that becomes a restaurant in the evening under chef Oded Oren, originally from Tel Aviv, who is “an absolute corker”. “Lamb sweetbreads come skewered and grilled over charcoal. There is a wedge of lemon to squeeze over them and a tidy pile of za’atar, […]
The mystery team behind rising star 108 Garage in Notting Hill – chef Chris Denney and owner Luca Longobardi – plan to launch another restaurant in New York in September, with further US openings to follow. Denney told The Times he is flying to New York every Saturday night and back to London for service on Tuesday while he sets […]
The family behind Jamavar, the new upmarket Indian in Mayfair, has taken the lease on Claude Bosi’s former restaurant Hibiscus in Maddox and plans to open an as-yet unnamed “casual Indian concept” there later this year. Dinesh Nair, co-chairman and managing director of India’s uber-luxurious Leela Palace group, has joined forces with his daughter Samyukta (pictured) for […]
⦿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed Tandoor Chop House, an Indian “concept” restaurant off the Strand, where he found the quality of the food was mixed and the prices high. “The best dish is the Dexter ‘dripping’ keema naan, a charred flatbread piled with highly spiced minced beef. Black pepper chicken tikka brings sizable cuts of bird […]
Anne-Sophie Pic, hailed as the world’s greatest female chef, opens her first restaurant in Britain, La Dame de Pic, in the City of London next Thursday, January 26. She became only the fourth woman to earn a third Michelin star when the accolade was bestowed 10 years ago on her family restaurant, Maison Pic in Valence, […]
 â¦¿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed Jihwaja, “a hilariously brilliant new Korean place in London’s Vauxhall” where “I felt like I had been glazed inside and out by their sweet-salty chilli sauce.” “Fried chicken is completely outrageous: crisp in a way that echoes through your jaw and muffles chatters, salty and sweet and fiery. Seaweed rice balls, laced with […]
⦿ In The Observer, Jay Rayner reviewed Aquavit, the St James’s offshoot of an “award-garlanded” Swedish restaurant in New York – “And, oh boy, check out that swagger.” It turned out to be “a proper Nordic noir thriller but for all the wrong reasons… It’s altogether more Trump Tower than Wallander. Everything is shiny and golden […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed The Holy Birds in Shoreditch, which serves duck, goose and guinea fowl, “but mostly, to be honest, chicken“. The quality of the poultry was not to be questioned, but he was far from impressed by the cooking. “Sure, the skin is dark, but only in places. Elsewhere it’s soft and floppy. […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed Veneta, just off Piccadilly, which, while “not an actively bad restaurant”, brought his culinary year to a disappointing end. “I long ago stopped taking notes in restaurants, figuring that if I couldn’t recall what I’d had for dinner that spoke volumes. With this one I had to dig out the […]
