⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed The Other Naughty Piglet, a branch of Brixton’s Naughty Piglets inside Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new theatre in Victoria, The Other Place, where he found “a kind of modern British cooking with wallops of umami”. “Sometimes the cleverness is textural. A pile of white crab meat sits atop a heap of […]
The Salutation, a spectacular country house with restaurant opening in Kent this summer, is hosting a trial-run pop-up with a spring tasting menu over Easter. Built by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1912 in medieval Sandwich, the Salutation was the first 20th-century building awarded Grade I listing by English Heritage. It also has a 3.7-acre garden by Gertrude Jekyll. […]
Ana Ros, newly crowned as top female chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants (see Harden’s report), will be cooking in London on June 14. Ros, chef-patron of Hisa Franko in Slovenia, heads the line-up at Chefstock, the annual festival hosted by Alyn Williams at his restaurant in Mayfair’s Westbury Hotel. Williams said this year’s Chefstock will […]
GBR – for Great British Restaurant – is the straight-to-the-point name of a new all-day dining venue opening in Dukes, the St James’s hotel, in May. Chef Nigel Mendham, who has worked in country house hotels including the Samling in the Lake District, South Lodge in Sussex and the Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds, has […]
⦿ Marina O’Loughlin of the Guardian reviewed Popolo 8/10 in Shoreditch,”run with utter grace by Jonathan Lawson, [an] ex-Theo Randall chef”. “The main flavour here is Italian classics, flawlessly realised… and dishes that straddle cuisines. Some appear to be the result of a particularly febrile imagination: cool, thick labneh studded with a hectic combination of crisp-shelled fried […]
⦿ The Guardian’s Marina O’Loughlin reviewed Trump Turnberry 6/10 in Ayrshire, where she arrived with “prejudices fully erect” and is told in a whisper, “We’re not allowed to talk politics.” “Yes, there’s a lot to loathe. I hate that the hotel celebrates Scottishness in a way only a tourist can love: charming doormen waft you indoors […]
Rising star chef Anton Piotrowski has left Devon gastropub the Treby Arms and re-launched his career in a small Plymouth restaurant. He blamed the sudden move on the breakdown of his marriage. Piotrowski turned the modest pub in his home village of Sparkwell into a multi-award-winning destination with an ambitious menu over a six-year period, winning MasterChef: […]
A retirement village in Hampshire has become the first to win national recognition for the quality of its restaurant with the award of an AA rosette. The Redwood Bistro at Bishopstoke Park retirement community in Eastleigh – which is open to non-residents – received the award following an anonymous inspection visit in December. While the announcement may have come […]
Australian-style burger café Ben’s Canteen has raised more than £400,000 in a crowdfunding campaign towards an ambitious expansion programme from its Battersea base. Ben Walton opened the original café in 2011, adding a branch in nearby Earlsfield in 2015. The next phase begins with a high-profile branch at the new Battersea Power Station development in September, the […]
⦿ In the Observer, Jay Rayner reviewed Barbecoa, the new Piccadilly flagship from Jamie Oliver (pictured, left, with Raymond Blanc), a grand and expensive “meat and smoke extravaganza“. “It feels like a big New York brasserie crossed with a branch of Hawksmoor. The real action is downstairs in a basement space which laughs in the […]
