There are compensations to being a restaurant critic. One of them is that you have to explore nooks and crannies of the capital you might never otherwise seek out. Canonbury, for example, is a very nice place to get lost in. Once, with some difficulty, we’d finally located, the subject of this review, its appearance […]
On inspection, the Farringdon newcomer we had originally intended to review today just looked too horrible. So we diverted instead to this nearby hang out – the new(ish) off-shoot of Camden Town’s long-serving Caribbean ‘Restaurant & Rhum Shack’. Not, to be honest, with high hopes, but it did at least look welcoming. And in the […]
When you come out of Victoria Station you can’t miss a new monstrosity which looks rather like the nose of a huge French TGV. Like everything these days, however, it turns out that it is in fact a shopping mall. And really on quite a scale. At its heart you’ll find a Ha-Ha!, a Tasca, […]
Sebastian Snow is a true veteran of the west London restaurant scene. In 1994, he launched “Snows on the Green’ (on Brook Green), which – in those admittedly less competitive days – generated much press interest. He then made an ill-fated expansion into Barnes (the short-lived “Snows on the Pond’), heralding a period of decline. […]
The main reason that this new Clapham Italian has attracted a certain amount of attention is because it is the brainchild of Mike Filpi. You may not have heard of Mr Filpi, but you possibly have heard of the hip Eclipse bar chain – now part of the same group as Boujis, Prince Harry’s favourite […]
In the late-’90s, mega-scale restaurants such as Mezzo and Quaglino’s were taken as proof that London was becoming the centre of the culinary world. But funnily enough, none of those spaces ever made you want to say ‘wow’. ‘Wow!’ is a word that easily springs to mind as you enter this vast newcomer, in the […]
According to its mission statement, this Covent Garden basement has recently been re-launched by some ‘friends’ – all with backgrounds in bars and booze – as a place where customers can enjoy ‘interesting and exciting’ wines in a ‘relaxed and convivial atmosphere’. Hard to argue with that (or, indeed, with their reasonably-priced selection of less […]
London’s ethnic mix is endlessly confusing. Everyone knows that Southwark has large Black African and Black Caribbean populations. But did you know it’s one of the city’s top Chinese hot-spots? (London’s only ward in to have more than 5% Chinese population, is turns out, is nearby Millwall in Tower Hamlets.) The lunchtime population at this […]
Summer. A time for lazy weekend lunches out of town, enjoyed from a vantage point with lush views, balmy breezes and somewhere for a post-prandial stroll. Do you have a favourite? If so, we’d like to hear your suggestions, at mail@hardens. (Hey, we need some excuse to get out of town.) If you don’t have […]
Erstwhile Goldman Sachs banker, Soren Jessen is nowadays a restaurateur with a track record. He is the man behind one of the City’s top gaffs – One Lombard Street – which successfully combines a fine dining room with a popular bar/brasserie. His name is also a bit of a magnet for hipsters. (This reputation has […]
