Smart West End places where it’s ‘all about the food’ are all too rare. So it’s hard not to warm to this Barcelona-inspired newcomer. Hard-edged and marbled – in Continental-style – the dining room has space for just a single counter, and a row of stools. Its pedigree is encouraging. This is the latest venture […]

Continue reading


In this column almost exactly a year ago, we reviewed Les Coulisses, the predecessor of the restaurant we review today. In their old incarnation, these slightly gloomily-located premises at the foot of Broadgate Circle, seemed confused as to whether they were a St Tropez-style bar/nightclub or a restaurant. It was all a bit odd. The […]

Continue reading


Claiming to be ‘London’s first Bollywood restaurant’, this Covent Garden newcomer occupies the ground floor above a glamorous pan-Asian basement called Tamarai (reviewed here a month or two ago). Sitaaray feels as if it has had to make do with what was left of the building’s floorplan after the other occupants – not least the […]

Continue reading


Our expectations on entering this new establishment behind Debenhams were frankly not very high. Its setting – occupying a small block which is otherwise entirely a multi-story car park – is about as uninviting as you’ll find in the West End. The site’s history is not particularly encouraging either. For nearly half a century, it’s […]

Continue reading


It would be easy to dismiss this late-2006 newcomer as a fashion-driven lightweight. Well, for a start, it’s in Notting Hill. And, to make matters worse, it’s linked with the Ignite Group, owners of the Eclipse bar chain and Kate Middleton’s favourite nightclub, Boujis. Finally there the motto – “For city folk who like a […]

Continue reading


In London, your classic mid-range Gallic restaurant is something of a rarity. This may seem an odd thought in a city seemingly awash with cafés, bistros, brasseries – and even the occasional Gallic-run gastropub – but it’s true nonetheless. In London, French restaurants – particularly ‘modern French’ restaurants – remains largely a creature of the […]

Continue reading


What a splendid ‘throwback’ name for an Indian restaurant! But sadly it isn’t. Indian, that is. This East End boozer-conversion – having retained the name by which the site has long been known – is a thoroughly British gastropub. And so we enter a second terminological minefield, as Gordon Ramsay has recently announced that the […]

Continue reading