Reviews
Pearl Liang, 8 Sheldon Square, London W2
One restaurant group dominates the dim sum scene in London. Is Pearl Liang set to steal its crown?
Inside Reviews
Kitchen W8, 11-13 Abingdon Road, London W8
Saturday, 27 February 2010
I've been accused, once or twice, of being an unadventurous traveller. "Is there any danger of your reviewing a restaurant outside the immediate environs of south London," asked a recent, sarcastic email, "where, I understand, you were born, grew up and have always lived? Would you like to try somewhere further afield? Not outside London, obviously, since that might fatally disorientate you. But perhaps some other bit of the metropolis?"
Le Relais de Venise 120 Marylebone Lane, London W1
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Once you’re in, it won’t take long to order at Le Relais – it’s steak or nothing. But is it worth queueing up for?
HUNter 486 at The Arch Hotel, 54-60 Great Cumberland Place, London W1
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Praising a hotel restaurant is like complimenting a fat person on their footwear; you focus on the positive, and try to ignore what's going on upstairs. No one actually wants to eat in a hotel, apart from residents who can't be bothered to put their coats on. Hence the proliferation of big-name chefs recruited to turn London's grand hotel dining rooms into destinations in their own right.
More, 104 Tooley Street, London SE1
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Livebait and The Real Greek are now chains –but is it third time unlucky for the team's latest venture, More?
The Seafood Restaurant, Riverside, Padstow, Cornwall
Saturday, 13 February 2010
There's something about Rick Stein that doesn't irritate people as much as other TV cooks and celebrity chefs do. Perhaps it's his looks: that exiguous grey hair, the honest brow and the guileless smile conspire to make him resemble a trustworthy fishmonger. To dwellers of Padstow, he may have become too ubiquitous a presence – four restaurants, a delicatessen, a patisserie, a gift shop, a seafood cookery school and 40 hotel bedrooms make up his phenomenal gastronomic/catering empire – but he's managed to retain the image of a basically decent cove with a charming obsession about all things fishy and crustacean.
The Artichoke 9 Market Square, Old Amersham, Bucks
Sunday, 7 February 2010
It may be tucked away in an olde-worlde small town, but The Artichoke has the Michelin inspectors in its sights
21212, 3 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh
Saturday, 6 February 2010
The mystery object, a crisp, greyish wafer dusted in sweet white powder, was passed back and forward between us. To our growing frustration, neither of us could identify it, though the taste was intense and maddeningly familiar. Could it be parsnip? Dried fish skin, possibly? Defeated, we asked the waiter for a formal ID. Of course! It was a Savoy cabbage leaf, dried and coated in vanilla sugar. If, as Shirley Conran claimed, life is too short to stuff a mushroom, what kind of maniac would want to subject a cabbage leaf to such treatment? And why?
An Angela at my table: Toby Young invites a local chef to cater a dinner party at his home
Sunday, 31 January 2010
The average UK temperature in the first week of January was -2.1 degrees, and things haven't improved that much since.
The Bingham Restaurant, 61-63 Petersham Road, Richmond, Surrey
Saturday, 30 January 2010
When it's freezing out and the Snow Queen seems to have parked a shard of ice in your heart, it's not the ideal time to consider the loveliness of the river terrace at the Bingham Hotel, Richmond.
Tamada, 122 Boundary Road, London NW8
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Sunday lunchtime can be the loneliest time of the week for the exiled traveller, yearning for the comfort food of their distant homeland.
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