A handy destination for visitors and locals alike, this British brasserie on the corner of Trafalgar Square is open all day and ideal for breakfast, coffee or tea; on our early-days visit, however, its attractions as a lunch or dinner destination were less persuasive. The Wolseley has a lot to answer for. When the Piccadilly […]
Handy enough for a pricey shopping lunch near Ken High Street, this grandly marbled bar-cum-restaurant otherwise struck us as a venue without many obvious attractions. F. Scott Fitzgerald was right. The rich are different from you and me. They seem, for example, to deem only one decorative finish acceptable. And that is marble. Step forward, […]
Uncompromising but welcoming, a light and bright operation in the ‘School of St John’, offering an interesting and evolving menu at prices which encourage experimentation. James Lowe is part of a diaspora of former Young Turks – a group of ex-pop-up chefs which also includes Isaac McHale, now of the esteemed Clove Club, which is […]
Handily located near Piccadilly Circus, a characterful and upbeat dining bar/restaurant bringing refreshing modern Israeli cuisine to the heart of the West End. Serving ‘the food of modern day Jerusalem’ – in Chinatown – this quirky spot is clearly not your typical newcomer. And it’s not just the mismatch between the culinary style and the […]
On the former Bethnal Green site of Viajante, a great all-rounder from Jason Atherton protégé Lee Westcott, where the food is fashionable enough to be interesting, without being so mannered as to be irritating – hopefully the beginning of a trend! Only those recently returned from Mars will be unaware of the fact that Nuno […]
Remarkable in location and setting – just two mins from Piccadilly Circus, and with a large terrace – the latest Firmdale Hotel offers the group’s usual dining formula; the establishment’s all-round charms, though, may well make it a real destination. You’ve got to hand it to Tim & Kit Kemp, the Londoners who’ve built up […]
Near Trafalgar Square, a stylish and welcoming offshoot of a Barcelona tapas bar/restaurant – particularly handy in a part of Theatreland where many establishments are still grimly impersonal. Anyone going to the theatre in the vicinity of the Haymarket still has a pretty unappealing lot of restaurants to contend with, so all hail to this […]
Hidden-away in Bayswater, John Burton-Race’s new restaurant offers quite a traditional formula which, our early-days visit suggests, is done well enough to be worth seeking out. There were a number of reasons we expected not to like this Bayswater newcomer. Most obviously, it is the creature of a ‘TV chef’ (John Burton-Race). It also takes […]
A supposedly informal revamp of Marcus Wareing’s grand Knightsbridge hotel dining room; the food on our lunchtime visit was enjoyable and quite good value, but the style of service remains as fundamentally ancien-régime as ever, and some may find the atmosphere oppressive. Marcus is the new name for Marcus Wareing. Not the man of course, […]
A contemporary-style update of a traditional Knightsbridge Italian; a good quality, if pricey, all-rounder, where service can sometimes seem jarringly formal. In a city without much in the way of living restaurant history, ‘Chelsea Italian’ is one of the few styles you could write a whole book about. In fact, someone did – it’s called […]
