Opposite Green Park, a smart, well-spaced and welcoming Peruvian bar/restaurant offering good standards all-round; for those not too worried about counting the pennies, its clubby charms would make it particularly suitable as a party destination. Arjun Waney – co-founder of such establishments as Zuma and Roka – clearly knows a bit about establishing a restaurant […]
On the Belgravia/Pimlico fringe, the former Ebury has been relaunched as a good-all-round bar/restaurant, offering food of no particular ambition, but realised with solid consistency. It’s ‘rather picniccy’, said the young Miss Harden. As good a word as you’re going to find to describe the bright and effortfully informal mismatched décor of this large, light […]
A vehicle for a chef of undoubted talent, this ostentatious Mayfair ‘brasserie’ offers perfectly acceptable food and service but on our early-days visit any sort of excitement was signally lacking. Eric Chavot cooked at Knightsbridge’s Capital Hotel for a decade (ending in 2009). This really tells you everything you need to know about his skills […]
From an operator with some big-name experience behind him, a low-key fast-food chain-prototype, in Victoria, offering standards which – at least in the early days – are impressive. Not a tweet, still less any reviews can we find: the opening of Scoffs seems to have been met with total media disinterest. Odd, really: until not […]
Part of a Romanian-based chain, a Mayfair Italian (with a twin in Earl’s Court) offering a generic formula that’s about 20 years out-of-date, and at high prices too; with the food, however, there is nothing actually wrong. We were intrigued. Not one, but two, branches of this Bucharest-based Italian chain – there’s another in Earl’s […]
A couple of blocks from Charlotte Street, a corner boozer which gives a convincing British spin on the classic brasserie format; our early-days visit found it one of those rare places where there’s nothing really to fault. Those Englishmen who believe that the classic Gallic bistro/brasserie offers the pretty much perfect informal dining experience (guilty, […]
Presided over by the executive chef of the usually good (but always pricey) Hakkasan group, a business-friendly City-fringe restaurant offering prettified, notionally Cantonese dishes – some of very high quality – in a Western ‘dégustation’ format. We can’t say we went to HKK with the highest hopes. It’s owned by the Hakkasan people, whose most […]
Near Piccadilly Circus, a warm, welcoming and slightly chaotic Japanese noodle parlour, serving warming dishes in generous portions – ideal for West End refuelling! Looking for a quick, cheap and tasty West End meal? We have a feeling that the main streets of our metropolis have been lagging when it comes to mid-market dining a […]
Just off Carnaby Street, an amiable bistro (on the former site of Benja, RIP), offering a top-value steak/frites formula in a tightly-packed communal setting surprisingly evocative of Old Soho. The name nearly put us off checking out this new bistro, just off Carnaby Street. Yet another hommage à Downtown NYC? And, to make it worse, […]
On the eastern fringe of Covent Garden, a smart basement Japanese restaurant with a rather corporate atmosphere and quite high prices (especially on the wine front); for business entertainment, though, it has its attractions, and the lunch menu is a value-proposition well worth seeking out. Notably friendly staff are one of the attractions of this […]
