What are hotel restaurants for? It’s a question that many hotels struggle with, especially in cities with vibrant restaurant scenes. A haven of gastronomy is one obvious answer, so recruiting a ‘name’ chef is step one. For many years, Theo Randall headed up the kitchen at the River Café, so putting his name up in […]
Funny place Sloane Square. Shoppers and the local residents sashay by, resplendent in the choicest fabrics and beautiful shoes and immaculate hair-dos. And that’s just the men. It all makes for good people-watching, which helps explain the perennial success of the Square’s lacklustre Oriel brasserie. Seeing as it calls itself a brasserie, this newcomer opposite […]
This new restaurant and private member’s bar has been likened to “a gothic Claridges”. But aside from a quirky line in animal skulls (which make up a chandelier, wall lights, and just sit around on the bar), its airy décor fits firmly into the vaguely Manhattanite style that’s so familiar in the area. With its […]
New ventures by established restaurateurs almost invariably exhibit the latters’ ‘DNA’: starting from your knowledge of an operator’s previous ventures, you can usually make a pretty shrewd guess what new offerings are going to be like. The new incarnation of the Chelsea townhouse long known as Dan’s, however, seems to be an exception to this […]
As a general rule, heritage-themed restaurants (especially ones in hotels) are best given a miss. So whoever decided to use the name ‘Langtry’s’ for the new dining room of the Cadogan Hotel (after Lillie Langtry, who once lived here) needs a good talking to. It’s not a name that inspires confidence, especially for a dining […]
The signs were not good. From Tamarai’s web site I learnt that “Like the lotus flower’ the venue transforms into magical moods and multiple modes at different times. Designed as a hybrid hub it ‘ re-invents itself seamlessly”. When somewhere’s home page reads like an entry in Private Eye’s ‘Pseud’s Corner’, the cooking is seldom […]
It has not always proved a recipe for long-term success, but even Oliver Peyton’s most vociferous critics would concede he is one of our most progressive restaurateurs. All the more interesting, then, that, for his latest cultural-centre dining destination, his concept is the old-fashioned, no-nonsense Gallic brasserie. Certain physical constraints arise from locating the brasserie […]
Not everyone loves celeb chef Antony Worral Thompson. Gordon Ramsay, for example, once branded him a Teletubby, as distinct from a serious chef (such as himself). But it’s hard not to have some sneaking admiration for someone who combines seemingly limitless energy for self-promotion with evident talent. For example, before his Ready Steady Cook days, […]
Just over a year ago, we reviewed Nababbo, the Italian restaurant which then occupied this handily-located basement site, below Leadenhall Market. The upshot of our review was that it wasn’t a bad restaurant, but overpriced to the point that no one would rationally ever spend their own money there. Fairly soon afterwards, Nababbo was history […]
One day it’s closed. Then open again. Then it really is closed: the builders are in. This long-established bistro has been through some ups and downs of late. It turns out that Luc, the founder, had been out of the picture for the past few years, but the régime he put in place only finally […]
