Former Danesford House head chef Adam Simmonds has opened a 12-month pop-up in Soho to test the market ahead of a permanent opening in the capital. Test Kitchen, near Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Frith Street, will be just that – a counter where diners are expected to feed back to chefs on the dishes […]
⦿ Marina O’Loughlin of The Guardian reviewed Lorne 7/10 in Victoria, which lived up to the impressive CV of its founding partners, Katie Exton (sommelier and front of house) and Peter Hall (chef), who have worked at the Square, the River Cafe, Chez Bruce, Brawn and San Francisco’s celebrated Benu. “It’s the beef short rib that would make me a […]
West African cuisine will gets its most prominent central London showcase when Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen opens a six-month residency at the Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho on April 4. Zoe Adjonyoh has been cooking at supperclubs and pop-ups in London and Berlin since 2011, and is well established at Pop Brixton. Her first book, […]
⦿ Marina O’Loughlin of the Guardian reviewed Popolo 8/10 in Shoreditch,”run with utter grace by Jonathan Lawson, [an] ex-Theo Randall chef”. “The main flavour here is Italian classics, flawlessly realised… and dishes that straddle cuisines. Some appear to be the result of a particularly febrile imagination: cool, thick labneh studded with a hectic combination of crisp-shelled fried […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed Bundobust in Manchester, a “vibrant and cheap” combination of Indian veggie streetfood and craft beer that opened in December — and “by God, it works“. “Right now, the large, echoey basement space off the city’s Piccadilly feels like a big fat link in a chain, only one that hasn’t quite been […]
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, […]
The trio behind Taiwanese steamed bun specialist Bao are to open a more upmarket restaurant, bar and tea house called Xu in Soho this spring. Bao, which has branches in Soho and Fitzrovia, has been a runaway success for founders Shing Tat Chung, Wai Ting Chung and Erchen Chang, with customers enduring long queues to sample […]
Following the success of the Cronut – a donut crossed with a croissant – here comes the sushi donut, the latest hybrid from the new Camden branch of Asian fusion mini-chain Inamo. In fact the sushi donut is much more palatable than the name suggests, mainly because it does not involve the deep fryer. Inamo is best known for […]
⦿ AA Gill of the Sunday Times opened his review of The Magpie Café 5/5 in Whitby with the bombshell that he has cancer, an announcement that – uniquely perhaps for a restaurant review – was trailed by a front-page report. “I’ve got an embarrassment of cancer, the full English,” he wrote, promising to let his readers know […]
