Pembrokeshire-born chef Tom Simmons is opening his first restaurant in London this spring, with a focus on the best Welsh ingredients. Simmons, 28, appeared on MasterChef – The Professionals in 2011 and has worked with Tom Aikens and Mark Sargeant. His new self-named venue, with partner Lois Thomas running the front of house, is in the […]
Chef Matt Gillan will open his all-day café and evening restaurant in Brighton later this month — and has launched a kickstarter campaign to fund an ambitious extension. Gillan, who ran the Pass restaurant at South Lodge Hotel near Horsham for five successful years until last April, took over the Red Roaster café and roastery in Kemptown […]
⦿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed The Salt Room, Brighton, overlooking the beach from the unpromising ground floor of the Hilton Metropole. “Good things are sometimes found where you least expect them, and this restaurant is a very good thing indeed.” “Most pleasing of the starters is the fish soup. A bowl arrives containing a soft, […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed Louie Louie in Camberwell, a daytime cafe that becomes a restaurant in the evening under chef Oded Oren, originally from Tel Aviv, who is “an absolute corker”. “Lamb sweetbreads come skewered and grilled over charcoal. There is a wedge of lemon to squeeze over them and a tidy pile of za’atar, […]
Lympstone Manor, the new hotel and restaurant from distinguished chef Michael Caines, who ran the kitchen at Gidleigh Park for 21 years, opens for business on April 3 and is taking bookings now. Formerly know as Courtlands House, Lympstone Manor is on the Exe estuary near Exmouth, and has been refurbished at a cost of more than £7million. It has […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer visited 108 Garage off Portobello Road in Notting Hill, where he said “dribblingly positive reviews, of which this is another, have stacked up” – despite the lack of pre-opening publicity. “There is a touch of the Italian to the menu here, but also a touch of a bunch of other things besides. What […]
Acclaimed New York chef Dan Barber has lined up a stellar squad of London restaurant heroes for a month-long residency of his food-waste project wastED on the roof at Selfridges. Gordon Ramsay, Clare Smyth, Pierre Koffmann, Isaac McHale of Clove Club and Brett Graham of the Ledbury are among the leading London-based chefs who will put in a shift […]
Tom Kerridge is hosting a week of dinners with the pick of West Country chefs at his new private-dining space The Shed, almost next door to his Marlow pub the Hand & Flowers, in the last week of March. The Gloucestershire-born chef has lined up Peter Sanchez of Casamia in Bristol (Monday March 27), Michael […]
Ben Murphy, a protégé of Pierre Koffmann, has been appointed chef at Launceston Place, the South Kensington restaurant most famous as Princess Di’s local. Murphy, 26, made an immediate impact with his first restaurant, the Woodford, in northeast London last year, but quit after only 10 months. His predecessor at Launceston Place, the highly regarded […]
⦿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed Jihwaja, “a hilariously brilliant new Korean place in London’s Vauxhall” where “I felt like I had been glazed inside and out by their sweet-salty chilli sauce.” “Fried chicken is completely outrageous: crisp in a way that echoes through your jaw and muffles chatters, salty and sweet and fiery. Seaweed rice balls, laced with […]
