Jazz musician Tim Thornton this week opened a second branch of Base Face, the pizzeria he started in west London as a lockdown project in 2020 when live music was silenced by the Covid pandemic. The new site is by the River Thames in Barnes High Street – just a few doors away from the […]
Fair Shot Café, the all-day venue that provides training and jobs for young adults with educational disabilities, is moving into smart new premises in Covent Garden’s development The Yards, where it will be the West End’s first not-for-profit café. Founder Bianca Tavella, previously creative director of Petersham Nurseries, opened the original Fair Shot Café in […]
Humo, a high-end wood-fire restaurant featuring Latin American and Japanese-influenced cuisine, opened this week in the Mayfair site formerly occupied by Anthony Demetre’s Wild Honey (RIP). Humo, meaning smoke in Spanish, is structured around a dramatic four-metre custom-built open grill which uses up to eight different types of wood tailored to specific dishes. No electricity […]
The Byron burger chain, which sold for £100 million 10 years ago, has been bought out of administration for £856,000 under a deal which sees nine of its branches closed down. Launched in 2007 by restaurant consultant Tom Byng from an original Kensington branch, the chain was an early champion in the ‘better burger’ stakes […]
Our summary of what the national and local restaurant critics were writing about this week. The Observer “The joyful rebirth of chef Henry Harris’s restaurant Racine.” Jay Rayner is one of the first of the critics to review Bouchon Racine; even before going, as a “huge, dribbling admirer of all the people involved and all […]
One-man kitchen brigade Simon Bonwick is returning to his calling as a solo chef in rural Berkshire this month, after a short stint running the kitchen of a busy London gastropub. Simon and his wife Deborah are taking over The Dew Drop Inn, a tiny 16th-century pub owned by the Brakspear brewery in Hurley, between […]
Julie’s in Holland Park, one of the longest-surviving relics of Swinging Sixties London, has closed down with the retirement of Tim and Cathy Herring, who have owned and run it for 50 years. It served its last meals on New Year’s Eve. The Herrings took the restaurant over from the founder who gave it her […]
Wine-led restaurant Noble Rot is to open its third venue this spring, in Mayfair’s picturesque Shepherd Market. This follows the successful launch of the second branch, in Soho, two years ago. The new site was previously occupied by French brasserie Le Boudin Blanc, which closed down last year, and was originally a mid-19th-century pub called […]
• Andrew Fairlie at The Gleneagles Hotel, Scotland, awarded number 1 spot in Harden’s Top 100 Best UK Restaurants, followed by Evelyn’s Table at The Blue Posts, London, and Waterside Inn, Bray. • South West is strongest dining region after the South East with Cornwall as the county with the most Top 500 listings. • […]
Our summary of what the national and local restaurant critics were writing about in the second week of 2023. ***** The Guardian “British hospitality’s approach to vegetarians and vegans has pivoted 180 degrees since the bad old days of the pub-grub microwaved veggie lasagne.” Inspired her late father’s reactions to her teenage vegetarianism, Grace Dent‘s […]
