Reviews

River Cottage rendezvous: The River Cottage Canteen, Devon

Saturday, 23 August 2008

It's a whole 10 years since Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall moved into Park Farm in Dorset, to live a turn-of-the-century Good Life, growing his own vegetables, rearing his own meat and rendering his own curds and whey, or whatever it is one does with dairy products. From this modest beginning, a great empire rapidly grew. Park Farm was re-christened River Cottage, and the profusely surnamed Hugh became lodged in the public's imagination as a straggle-haired charmer who was always filmed with a hen or a lamb under his arm – though he was quite capable of dismembering either and eating them for lunch. He came across as a commonsensical realist, not a back-to-nature dreamer. Both he and his Cottage became bywords for self-sustaining, organic foodie purity.

Nice little runner: 500

Sunday, 17 August 2008

500, 782 Holloway Road, London N19, tel: 020 7272 3406

Korma blimey: Mezbaan, Tollcross, Edinburgh

Saturday, 16 August 2008

The requests start coming in at the beginning of August, from friends, and friends of friends. "We're going to Edinburgh – any ideas where to eat?" It's one of the hardy perennials of the restaurant reviewer's calendar, and it never seems to get easier to advise those festival-goers who want to include some decent meals in their cultural banquet.

The tables have turned: Quo Vadis

Sunday, 10 August 2008

Quo Vadis, 26-29 Dean Street, London W1, tel: 020 7437 9585

Making waves: Hix Oyster & Fish House

Saturday, 9 August 2008

You couldn't accuse Mark Hix of resting on his laurels. Running hell for leather on his laurels, more like. Since he parted company with Caprice Holdings, owners of Scott's and The Ivy, barely a year ago, he's now opened three restaurants. It's true that in one of them – The Albemarle in Brown's Hotel off Piccadilly – he was more overseeing grandee than chef-proprietor. But in the other two, Hix Oyster & Chop House, and this fish house under review, along with money he has clearly invested his heart and soul. This man is unstoppable.

Cheap as chips: The Dolphin Inn

Sunday, 3 August 2008

The Dolphin Inn, 12 Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings, East Sussex, tel: 01424 431 197

Sea bass with fennel purée

Sunday, 3 August 2008

Fennel has a natural affinity with seafood – and this is a nice, gentle way of serving it – clean, light and just a little bit nutty. This purée is also lovely with roast chicken.

Hél's kitchen: Helene Darroze at The Connaught, London

Saturday, 2 August 2008

So here I am in The Connaught, sitting down to dinner with an Independent-reading couple I have never met before. We're saying our hellos, and ...

Service not included: Vapiano

Sunday, 27 July 2008

Vapiano, 19-21 Great Portland Street, London W1, tel: 020 7268 0080

Raising the steaks: Maze Grill, Grosvenor Square, London

Saturday, 26 July 2008

City lunchers have had to re-think their priorities lately. Gone is a three-course blow-out at the Mercer, with the throw-caution-to-the-wind bottle of Chateauneuf. A new realism is abroad. It's saying, You, my lad, will be lunching at Strada or Wagamama or Yo! Sushi for the immediate future. So why is everyone going to the Maze Grill?

We are most amused: Princess Victoria

Sunday, 20 July 2008

Princess Victoria, 217 Uxbridge Road, London W12, tel: 020 8749 5886

Tooley scrumptious: Magdalen, Tooley Street, London

Saturday, 19 July 2008

The enthusiasm of my vary-sized fellow judges for Magdalen, nominated in the Best British category, was the spur I needed to make an overdue visit to this not-particularly-new, but apparently very good, restaurant in Bermondsey

Prince of Denmark Street: The Giaconda Dining Room

Sunday, 13 July 2008

Why Australian chef Paul Merrony is making a big noise on the street known as London's Tin Pan Alley

Second helpings: More wizards of Oz

Sunday, 13 July 2008

Soul Food: L'Anima

Saturday, 12 July 2008

L'Anima is the Italian word for "the soul" or "the spirit", and it's unusual to find ethereal connotations attached to modern Italian cuisine. Restaurateurs like to emphasise the earthiness, the spicy peasantness, the down-home, hairy-armpitted, beans-and-pasta-soup-iness of vero Italian cooking. You may think it laughable that the River Café calls its fabulous dishes cucina rustica, when no actual rustic Italian could afford a tenth of their Hammersmith prices – but the image was seriously meant.

Brasseries not included: Brasserie St Jacques

Sunday, 6 July 2008

St Jacques brings an authentic French buzz to the heart of London. But you don't want to read about that, do you?

Food Of The Week: Cultural fine dining is quite an art

Sunday, 6 July 2008

There's no need to go hungry when sating your cultural appetite. Check out these top-notch restaurants in galleries, theatres, concert halls and museums around the world.

Lost in Soho: Quo Vadis

Saturday, 5 July 2008

If ever a restaurant embodied the Zeitgeist of the Nineties (and isn't Zeitgeist the Ninetiest of words?) it was Quo Vadis. How deliciously ironic that an old Soho haunt, once the home of Karl Marx, should be taken over by the PR maestro and corporate flack Matthew Freud. And what larks when Freud and his partners, the artist Damien Hirst and Marco Pierre White, eventually had a spectacular falling-out, leaving White sulking in sole charge with only his self-painted Hirst knock-offs for company. Truly, each generation gets the bohemians and boulevardiers it deserves.

This Is Summer: Eating out

Monday, 30 June 2008

Nobody wants to be inside on a lovely day – so make a note of these delightful eateries around Britain that have outside spaces, from garden benches to elegant terraces

The Yau factor: Aaya

Sunday, 29 June 2008

Aaya, 66-70 Brewer Street, London W1, tel: 020 7319 3888

Sloane manger: The Botanist, Sloane Square

Saturday, 28 June 2008

When you first visit The Botanist, you think to yourself: here is a place that needs absolutely no help from a restaurant critic

How pukka is his pasta?: Jamie's Italian

Sunday, 22 June 2008

Jamie Oliver has just opened the first in his new chain of trattorias. Can he revolutionise the high-street Italian?

Food Of The Week

Sunday, 22 June 2008

The chef's special: a top-class meal that won't break the bank

Lovely jubbly: Jamie’s Italian, Oxford

Saturday, 21 June 2008

This is spooky. Jamie Oliver launches the first in a planned nationwide group of high street restaurants, and there's hardly any publicity about it. No TV series following the ups and downs of the recruitment process. No press release, no tie-in range at Sainsbury's, no poster campaign featuring a thumbs-aloft Jamie grinning, "I'm absolutely doolally about neighbourhood restaurants ..."

It's crunch time: Saf

Sunday, 15 June 2008

Saf, 152-154 Curtain Road, London EC2, tel: 020 7613 0007