Our mission is remarkably simple. To tell it how it is!
Jay Rayner in The Observer gets frisked on his way into Leicester Square’s new live music bar Studio 88… “A new live music bar near Leicester Square… where almost all the food is served in cones. I got frisked… If there’s one thing that really encourages the appetite, it’s being felt up by a total stranger with […]
Jay Rayner in The Observer reviewed United Chip in Clerkenwell. But make sure you also check out his defence of restaurant pricing below… “…the bravest restaurant opening in years. “United Chip stands out for attending to practically every modern bell and whistle it can find, while still caring about the essentials.” “…be in no doubt: this […]
Jay Rayner weighs in on the north/south restaurant divide question The Observer’s critic-in-chief heads to Manchester to try out the new Hawksmoor and stumbles across a veggie dining room, 1847, serving great food – well, apart from the desserts. Read our roundup of restaurant news in Manchester and enter our Hawksmoor Manchester competition. Meanwhile the […]
Just off Regent Street, a handy brasserie-style operation serving thoroughly competent but rather unremarkable dishes at prices seemingly inflated by association with proprietor Gordon Ramsay. You never quite know what to expect at a Gordon Ramsay establishment. Within a mile or so of each other, you can have places which are very good (Pétrus, say), and […]
From the (Lebanese) Maroush Group, a beautiful relaunch of a mega-grand St John’s Wood hostelry; despite the best efforts of the charming staff, and food which was at least satisfactory, the overwhelming impression from our visit was that the initial formula just does not ‘work’. Crocker’s Folly came into being, the legend goes, because Mr […]
In a prime Chelsea location, a welcoming English bistro, serving tasty small plates in an setting of some rusticity; it looks set to become a popular standby, though prices for full meals can escalate. It was a little way into our lunch at Rabbit that it struck us what’s so odd about it. Here we […]
A relaunched St James’s classic offering a decent ‘Big Night Out’ experience at pretty reasonable prices; dishes were inconsistent on our early-days visit, but those who choose carefully can eat well. Quag’s’ – a vast restaurant of some 300 seats, hidden away in the heart of St James’s – has, since its opening in the […]
In Brick Lane’s Old Truman Brewery, a casual new diner from the founders of Wahaca; the food has its moments, but the whole experience can be somewhat uneven. Thomasina Miers and Mark Selby seem to be paid-up subscribers to the notion that the art of cool is being in the know. The name of the […]
In the maze of cobbled streets near Spitalfields Market, a new Tuscan ‘villa’ serving a simple, fuss-free menu of steak and pasta, competently realised. Just south of Spitalfields Market is a cobbled maze of streets that look as though they might have sheltered Jack the Ripper. Its an atmospheric place with a couple of decent […]
Near the grand City-fringe Italian of the same name, a large contemporary-style café-pizzeria-trattoria; some of the food is of very high quality, and some of the prices are very reasonable too – both fronts, though, offer some scope for greater consistency. How quickly we forget. When L’Anima opened back in 2008, it seemed remarkable that […]
