Larger, if a touch less hip, than its Covent Garden sibling, the third member of this fashionable chain brings its impressively consistent steakhouse formula to a larger scaled City basement. Anyone familiar with the Hawksmoor formula is going to have few surprises at the latest incarnation of the steakhouse mini-chain, tucked away near the Guildhall. […]
Hidden-away in Bloomsbury, a gastropub venture from the people behind the well-regarded Princess of Shoreditch; it’s a potentially charming operation, but the first-floor dining room can get very noisy, and we found the food rather lacklustre. If you wanted to impress a visitor with your knowledge of the capital, this accessible (just north of Gray’s […]
From the school of Chez Bruce, a (rare) Chelsea restaurant where the emphasis is on the food rather than the ambience – in the light of those priorities, it achieves its aims very well. We all know restaurant groups have DNA – resemblances between the members of the ‘family’ explicable by their common origins. A […]
Not a destination for the cost-sensitive, but this showy Mayfair outpost of a famous Californian chef does what it does – including very good steaks and very pretty salads – very well. How we wanted to hate Cut! Who is Wolfgang Puck, this Austrian-Californian chef who’s created a multi-million dollar empire, but still doesn’t have […]
A basic Covent Garden bistro offering an ever-changing wine selection, and a menu of brutal simplicity; an early-days visit suggested this appealing-sounding formula is in need of a little refinement. The idea sounds so attractive. A bistro named after its ever-changing wine selection: ten whites and ten reds, all bought in (at most) ten case […]
The first solo London operation from Jason Atherton, the man who made ‘Maze’ for Gordon Ramsay; the formula – innovative, without it any way being startling – is nicely pitched, and already attracting a strong Mayfair following. The unassuming Jason Atherton is one of the most able chefs to have made his name as part […]
In the rag trade section of Fitzrovia, a large, stylish and cheerful brasserie whose compelling all-round formula is already packing ’em in. Our first surprise on visiting this attractive-looking newcomer, was that, despite the name, it’s as proper a brasserie as you’ll find – a sort of younger and trendier Wolseley. What good news! Despite […]
Near the Apple Store, a contemporary Italian restaurant whose rather retro culinary style contributes to a style surprisingly redolent of ‘old Mayfair’; a useful enough place, it seemed to us to lack the distinction necessary to become a real ‘destination’. All praise to AA Gill! The Sunday Times’s columnist may be famous for not talking […]
On the former Chelsea site of Aubergine, a welcoming and elegantly-styled new Italian restaurant; the cooking, though, is tame. Honey, we forgot the food! Are we imagining it, or is there a bit of a spate of restaurant at the moment which are very nice in every way’ except that the food is entirely unremarkable? […]
A grandly housed Japanese restaurant, just south of Trafalgar Square; standards struck us as solid, rather than anything more, but good bento (and so on) deals make this a handy daytime option – by night, its ambience would make it suitable for a not-too-serious business meeting. There’s a whole new quarter opening up in the […]
