Soho, American Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: “A nice, laid-back American buzz” has helped win a loyal following over the years for this small chain of Kansas City-style diners: one of the first in London to bring BBQ indoors. “It’s a fun place” (in the right mood) and the food is “decent” and in man-sized portions, but “not particularly special”.

“THE place to go for top-class Californian cooking in London” – Victor Garvey’s Soho five-year-old may be “eye-wateringly expensive” (“the price, ooh la la!”) but serves “top-notch cooking well deserving of its Michelin star”. “SoLa is that rare place that sources genuinely top-class ingredients and cooks them to perfection”: presenting them in either a 10-course tasting menu for £139 per person, or 17-course tasting menu for £229 per person. There are also drinks pairings to the above (at £170 and £230 per person) and a “fabulous” wine list drawn mostly from the US (and primarily, but not exclusively, from the West Coast). Despite refurbishment two years ago, the café-style ambience is the weakest link in the experience.

2021 Review: Since 1971, this age-old rocker has grown from its first site, near Hyde Park Corner, to 186 globally, and 2019 saw the group reinvest massively in the capital, with not just a new hotel (on the site that was once The Cumberland) by Marble Arch, but also with the July 2019 opening of a 19,000 sq ft, multi-level, new London flagship at Piccadilly Circus. The latter opening includes a menu shake-up, which introduces an unsuspecting world to new culinary delights, including the ‘24-Karat Gold Leaf Steak BurgerTM’; (as well as the retail opportunities of ‘the world’s largest Rock Shop”’). For silver-haired reporters (who were alive for the chain’s founding) – a generation by-and-large untroubled by the hipster burger revolution – the “generously meaty” patties of the original are “still the best”, and one early report on the hotel says its restaurant “really rocks” too…. Even allowing for cynicism about the effects of nostalgia on the tastebuds, the brand fares better in the survey than most mass-market offerings.