Category: London Restaurant Reviews

Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote : Buttered Frites

Only the most romantic of cities could have given birth to the L’Entrecote restaurants. It has remained firmly a family business for the better half of the 20th century. The legacy belongs to the family of Paul Gineste de Saurs, the founder, who was then…

Andrew Edmunds : Soho Charm.

Getting a table at this rather cosy restaurant is a bona fide challenge, even in light of its rather low-profile existence. I don’t think it has a web page. It does however have a fervent following spreading the good word on the intertubes. Twitter was…

Catch : of the day [invite]

There are five restaurants inside the beast of a hotel that is Andaz. Situated right in the heart of the square mile, a part of town where I periodically get lost in. I did as I usually do to turn to my trusty GPS when…

Bistrot Bruno Loubet : He’s back?

The last time Bruno Loubet was cooking professionally in London, I was apparently on scene to try his much praise innovative yet traditionally grounded French cooking. On that occasion, he was a guest chef for Pierre Koffman’s superbly successful Selfridges pop-up, which in 2009, had…

Roka : Japanese, expensive but oh so very good.

Roka is part of an ever expanding chain of zenith-class restaurants owned by German restaurateur, Rainer Becker. He also happens to own the Zuma line of luxury restaurants. Since he opened Zuma in 2002, and then Roka two years later, his highly acclaimed brand of…

“rhubarb” food bar : the flight of fancy

I perform too much of a ritual when I am about to travel to pay valuable attention to the eating at all, let alone eating well. Flying elicits all kinds of emotional responses, my brain becomes strangely reflective of the past x number of months…

J Sheekey : Gone fishing.

There is money behind J Sheekey. The ultimate owner, Richard Caring bought the Caprice galaxy of restaurants, amongst other things for a cool £30m in 2005 with a view to transform it into a superbrand of luxury eateries. This very group also includes some old…

Haozhan : Bold but rudderless.

This will be the penultimate entry in my unofficial 2010 Chinese cuisine fortnightly special which is (unofficially) intended to celebrate the coming Lunar New Year (Tiger) which will fall on the 14th of Feb this year. I had always been fasnicated with the idea of…

Plum Valley : Unpolished.

I once held the narrow view that only three types of Chinese restaurants exist in London. Ones that specialized in barbeque meat, others serve dim sum and the rest ripped people off. This perspective is largely unfounded as the diversity of London based Chinese restaurants…