Our mission is remarkably simple. To tell it how it is!
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 23rd March 2025 London Standard Senza Fondo!, Shoreditch David Ellis was primed to castigate this cod-Italian for its childish promise of “bottomless lasagna” (misspelt, he snootily corrected: it should be the plural form, lasagne), for the exclamation mark in […]
Soho restaurateur Nima Safaei opens his third venue in the district next week – a quick-service pasta bar that will not take bookings. Like its sibling Italian restaurants – 40 Dean Street, Nima’s original venue, opened in 2010, and 64 Old Compton Street, which followed last year – the new venue takes the name of its address: 27 […]
A flood of new food halls is rising across the country this year, from Newcastle via Manchester and Birmingham – where two halls open in May – to London, where no fewer than three are launching in quick succession this spring. Newcastle’s Freight Island, scheduled to open in the autumn, is billed as the ‘largest single […]
Giorgio Locatelli is to open a new restaurant at the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square this summer, five months after closing his famous Locanda Locatelli in Marylebone. The new all-day restaurant, to be called simply Locatelli, is on the mezzanine of the gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, which reopens on May 10 after a two-and-a-half-year refurbish. He […]
Acclaimed Welsh chef Nathan Davies is to open a new restaurant on Guernsey this summer, 18 months after leaving highly rated SY23 in Aberystwyth. Vraic – a local seaweed in Guernsey French – will have an open kitchen centred on a Basque-inspired grill cooking whole fish and joints of meat on the bone, while much of […]
Gordon Ramsay (right in photo) has acquired the former site of Le Gavroche in Mayfair, with chef Matt Abé (left) shifting from his flagship, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, to take charge of the as-yet-unnamed new venture. Michel Roux closed Le Gravroche, in Upper Brook Street, just over a year ago, ending […]
Ealing’s Santa Maria pizza is to take over the restaurant space at the Frontline Club near Paddington station this month as the brand gears up for a major expansion. Founders Pasquale Chionchio and Angelo Ambrosio opened their first pizzeria in 2010 and have expanded slowly since then, taking 15 years to reach five branches – but […]
Edinburgh-based special events chef Barry Bryson today opens his debut seafood restaurant, Barry Fish, on the historic Leith waterfront. In more than a decade cooking for events, Barry has worked for high-end clients including Jupiter Artland, Glenmorangie, Louis Vuitton, Aston Martin and the British Embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay. His pop-ups have included a sold-out season […]
American luxury lifestyle brand RH – fka Restoration Hardware – is planning to open an eating, drinking and shopping complex in Mayfair incorporating a restaurant, a coffee shop, three bars and a rooftop terrace. The company has submitted plans to Westminster council to transform three Grade II-listed buildings off Savile Row, previously occupied by Abercrombie […]
Harry’s, a new restaurant combining fresh local ingredients with “timeless” French cuisine, launches next week at the Gallivant boutique hotel behind Camber Sands, near Rye in East Sussex. Two Harrys are behind the project – hotelier Harry Cragoe and chef Matthew Harris, who spent 28 years at Bibendum in Chelsea and is the brother of Bouchon […]
