This is the only time you’ll see the food menu, because these three items are quite literally all they serve. After Hawksmoor successfully ported the America’s favourite summer roll to the El Smoky last year, it was only a matter of time before the Russians would follow. Well it took them a while, but the good people from Goodman (who are imho still the capital’s best steakhouse(s)) bring you the first lobster bar in London. With burgers. And cocktails, designed by The Soul Shakers. If Goodman attracts the mid-week fat banker stereotype (actually, I think they entertain more Chinese tourists rocking bling Vertus than city workers) , then Burger & Lobster is where the fat banker would take his family for a weekend meal. If I was 10, I could totally see myself bibbing up every Sunday with my family at this restaurant. No really, I love this place, it’s basically premium fast food. So, you choose either a Beef burger, a lobster roll or a steamed/grilled whole Canadian lobster for £20. Every plate comes with chips, salad, clarified butter (with or without lemon) with the seafood and in-house pickles for the beef. Grilled Lobster, chips, salad, £20. When you visit, ask Dave Strauss (if he’s about) to show you the lobster tanks which they have specially put together in the basement to hold … tonnes of live, swimming critters
At last, José Pizarro’s diptych is finally complete, and you know what, it’s mighty fine work. The restaurant took a while to finish – it’s at least a month late, and the private rooms are still awaiting the finishing details – but it finally opened, and my my, is it going to be a smashing success in 2012. It seems to be fashionable these days for Spanish restaurant owners to pair larger scale restaurants for the full experience with a more modest – or shall we say more fun – sherry bar for the easy tapas and alhambras. If you cast your mind back to the boozy summer of sherry and half cooked pork, you’ll remember that José really was just the prologue to something much bigger to come. And it is much, much bigger. If José was a cute baby taking his first steps into the dangerous world of hospitality, then Pizarro is all grown up 28 year old voluptuous Paz Vega all lips, puppy dog eyes and husky voice (Oh Paz Vega, wouldn’t that be a christmas to remember). Alright to be fair then, how about a 35 year old Antonio Banderas with his piercing stare, a Spanish guitar with brand new nylon strings and cat whiskers. For background noise, the front of house chose Nina Simone tracks from (I’d like to think it was) her 1958 album
AKA …where Kang spent most of his moolah this year. The time has come to reflect on what’s been yet another crazy year of restaurant collecting. Just when I thought the burgeoning number of openings in 2010 were overwhelming, 2011 came and smashed 2010 out of the park. There was literally something new to try every week. There’s more diversity than ever from this year’s round of openings and non-openings with ‘street food’ coming of age and the no booking policy becoming the norm. I think eating out is still expected to be a special occasion, but now it’s done more regularly, more spontaneously with less formality and with costs spread out across more meals. With that, I think it’s fair to say that 2011 is the year that ‘fine dining’ died and came back to life as a caricature of itself. This was epitomised with the baffling 2nd update to the Bib in the fall (or I should say, releasing 2012′s revision six months ahead of schedule). It has only done damage to the credibility of their vaunted macaroons. Looking at what’s coming in the pipeline, 2012 looks to only build on the momentum of 2011. At this rate, one wonders if there will be a point where we will hit critical mass. Maybe shitty restaurants will become extinct, someday, who knows. I think its safe to say that
Who comes up with all this fiction just for a restaurant? This is the persuasive language Oliver’s people have generated for his latest project: “Ours is a union of ideas, traditions, and of people.” “Where wood-fired flatbreads meet great British flavours.” Lookintomyeyeslookintomyeyes. What’s with the wonky name – why not just call it Union or Union Jack. Is this meant to be ironic? I don’t get it. The ambiguity with the plural form (or misplaced punctuation) is the restaurant equivalent of the 2012 Olympics logo. In spite of the spin, this really is just a pizzeria. It’s billed as some kind of ground breaking bastardisation of the humble Italian pie, by the hand of Jamie’s very Bri’ish style and nicknamed as Flatbreads. As if one could reinvent something simply by calling it something else. I do like the ‘Gary Baldy’ biscuit, however. I’d like to think these concepts were the result of a complicated brain storming session by a think tank of consultants locked in a meeting room and eating nothing but pizza to precipitate ideas. Back in the real world, this union is a partnership between Jamie Oliver and Pizza Maestro Chris Bianco. This Central St Giles location being the pilot for a upcoming franchise, which (presumably) pending the success of this branch, will spread throughout London and the rest of the country in the next couple of years
My food writing invariably boils down to a caricature of self-indulgent cliched hyperbole or superflous self-doubting and pointless debate of what food should taste like. Given the circumstances, I sincerely believe this is the best thing between buns I’d yet come across. But first let us be properly acquainted. Reader meet Lucky Chip’s weekly burger special “The Bill Murray Life Aquatic Surf and Turf”. She is an aged beef patty with a (new) sesame bun, partnered with a fried soft-shell crab, guac, spring onion, spicy mayo, sweet chilli ginger sauce and processed cheese. She’s worth £9. Yes, I thought so too, how could purists ever love such a criminally tainted patty which has laid with a creature from the deep blue sea? After one bite, any lingering doubt was erased. I was completely convince: this wasn’t just a great burger, this was a sexual experience. As you know, Lucky Chip, like Meatwagon, utilise the steam-the-patty-and-fixing under a metal cloche technique, which allows all the flavour-concentrated steam to re-condense within the patty, leading to the satisfying and sloppy mouthful. However, I was most impressed with how the guac, the syrupy sweet chilli drizzle and soft shell crab complimented the already potent beefiness of the patty. The burger had this great textural quality that held together real well, a little like the way it feels when you sink your fingers into kneading
Damn it, he’s done it again. (He being the elusive blurryman with the fire red scarf, and thick brown rim specs, aka Mr Cool.) And here I thought that Da Polpo was the last cherry atop this tiny empire. They are back, this time around, Norman, Beatty and Oldroyd give us a glimpse of something a little Jewish. It’s deja vu because Mishkin’s is like that other off-shoot hobbyist lightbulb moment which Russell Norman had brought to life. Remember that ..the truffle egg toast, the ground beef sliders, the speak-easy-esque ambiance? You know how much I love Spuntino, I was so excited with this project, I decided to book a table on the first official day of service. 50% off for the previews. As usual, Russell is on scene for day one service (yeah… I’m pretty sure I was there for first day service at DaP and Spun as well) to greet us. So new, the paint is still drying, but this time around, things sure look much tidier. The decor possess the now classic Norman touches : there’s the rectangular bar, the Victorian ceilings, dangling lamps, the brick walls. It’s like an American diner but all grown up, bringing some Madmen slickness to the indie feel. Its Spuntino in a red blazer with beige docker trousers and polished brogues. Floors are decked out with black and white tiles, the
Here’s a list of good things I expect from a good bistro: 1.Good soup 2.Good steak 3.Good frites 4.Good tartare 5.Superhot waitress I recall a highlight reel of what the Glasgow arm of this luxury out-of-town hotelier is capable of, during an episode of Don’t tell the bride. They took the tour through the banquet room, the room for the exchange of vows, the grounds. the venue was so slick, the bride cried knowing her man would never plan their wedding there. Of course, I don’t watch that show. It just happened to be playing in the background as I was shaping my manly deltoids at the gym. Obviously. There are fifteen Hotel du Vins up and down the country from St Andrews to Brighton, none are in London, but presumably all of the hotel restaurants resemble some version of bistro du vin. As of writing, there are two Bistro du Vins in London; one is next to the shit-hot Duck Soup Soho, and the other currently occupies the site where one of the best London bistros died – Bjorn van de Horst’s Eastside Inn. You do remember Eastside Inn don’t you? That was nice French food. Bistro du Vin doesn’t punch at that level, but in many ways that’s a good thing, because really the formulae that’s being applied – competitively priced, traditional French bistro affair, enomatic-preserved wines by
Bryn Williams is the most underrated chef in this country. I recall his stupendous turn on the first season of Great British Menu, in which his representation of Wales on a plate of cockles, samphire and turbot, eventually won its way to HM’s 80th birthday bash. Something I’m sure she gobbled up with glee. Five years on, the same dish is now a famously permanent fixture from his ALC menu at Odette’s. I had it last year and I was completely flabbergasted by how good the conception of the dish really is. It remains one of the most memorable dishes Ive ever eaten, and that sentiment also extends to the rest of Bryn’s fantastic cooking. I continue to be amazed by the lack of internet champions for this terrific neighbourhood restaurant. Maybe that’s the problem, that Odette’s is so well nestled within its neighbourhood that it deserves to remain a secret and not be paraded around the internet like yet another ice chips and beetroot trend that becomes dangerously out of fashion the moment it comes into vogue. Conceptual nonsense has no place in Odette’s ; This restaurant mainly involves a hardworking and a fairly young chef – coming into his prime – who passionately slaves away in his kitchen (most days and nights, if not every) to craft one of the most delicious Anglo-Franco menus in London. His six
Wet, hot, late in the night, an empty street and a full restaurant, ah… bonjour Paris. We arrived in Gare du Nord just after nine at night, taking the Eurostar from St Pancras. It took us a while to find our hotel in Madeleine ( The Le Vignon, a delightful getaway, which I highly commend) but as soon as we dropped our bags, we were back on the Metro again. Our destination was Goncourt, we were out to find the 9th best restaurant in the world. It’s quite impossible to book a table over the phone, so I didn’t bother trying. I opted to turn up with a hope of getting a table for the 2nd sitting after 10pm, and in my opinion, the more appropriate way to eat supper in Paris. We were in luck, a Thursday night, there were only 3 tables ahead of us in the queue, and those from the earlier sitting were just starting to leave. So it appears that getting a table at one of the hottest restaurants in Paris wasn’t so difficult after all. As I stood in line, I got started with two glasses of whatever was available that night – a white and a red Languedoc – while the missus scoped out Le Dauphin next door, surveying its respective queue. We were hedging our bets in deciding which two of Paris&#
I told you Barrica was good. Not all of us agreed two years ago, but we probably do now. After all, they’ve impressed enough of us to have a crack at a second child: Soho newest sensation called Copita, for sherry glass. I’m sure I recognised a couple of ex-Barrica staff who now work at Copita. Looking back, it may have been because Barrica was yet another conventional tapas bar in face of the stiff competition. The Brindisas for example, the mighty Dehesa group, the supremely hot Barrafina, and that’s just along the spine of Shaftesbury Avenue. 2009 feels like such a long time ago. In the future (2011) , populist plate sharing still prevails, but we have matured past reserving tables or eat sitting down, we’ve put Sherry on the tube map, and small plates are no longer limited to Iberian classics. How does the rest of the world think of the way we Londoners like to eat out, I wonder. We seem to enjoy the shift toward establishments that merge drinking and nibbling, we don’t mind queuing up, or even notice that new restaurants are cramming the same covers onto shrinking floorspace. Just when you thought the proverbial towel of shared plates has been well and truly wrung of juicy ideas, comes a new tapas bar with enough upgrades to set itself apart from the competition. But first,
Banana skin. I was suggested to try the ‘Ocre Rouge’, a Pinot Noir from Dions (as opposed to Burgundy) and I had come to the conclusion that this was a quirky little devil of a wine. The finish and its tannin structure was akin to banana skin, a first and a rather interesting peculiarity. The same could be said of the terribly cramped environs of the new Soho opening which has captivated Twitter’s appetite. Not only are they the latest restaurant to operate a no reservation service, they have gone the extra mile to install a record player on premises, inviting returning patrons to share their vinyl collection with everybody in the room. Ducksoup is either a genuinely hip place to dine or at the very least a good pretender. It is in keeping with the presumption that Londoners are still very much in love with the idea of less is more when eating out. Think Brawn, Spuntino and Rochelle Canteen throw in a Kitchenaid, then splashed across Fernandez & Wells. Et voilà. The brains behind this genius are ex-Hix, chef Julian Biggs ( I think he is the beardy one) , Clare Lattin and Rory McCoy, collectively have managed to make the genre of uber-cool and understated, easily egalitarian yet decidedly British restaurant, feel refreshed once again. I really like the name, obviously it is not named after soup,
This is what you see when you arrive at The Sportsman. Perhaps this is the secret to the good cooking since this is also the view from Stephen Harris’ kitchen. I’m sure you must have heard about this place by now, quite literally every blog and hack with the vaguest interest in food, in this country has written and raved about this michelin starred restaurant. It is one amongst a very rare collection of restaurants which commands near unanimous appeal, and as such, it is often regarded as the very best this country has to offer. The original gastropub began life when Stephen sat through a revelatory meal at Chez Nico way back in ’92, which then became his inspiration to bring the slickness of high cooking to a more accessible setting. In the subsequent years, Stephen set about unravelling the mysteries of macaroon winning ways by visiting the nation’s darling restauranteurs of the era including MPW and GR until one fine November day in 1999, he decided to buy an isolated pub nestled between the English coast on one side and rolling fields of grazing sheep on the other. He crafted a brand new kind of experience that sought to marry cutting edge decadence with a wedge of the English seaside. Boy, did he managed that and then some. Today, he holds a Michelin star, the restaurant is constantly
There were an incredible number of suits who sat through Friday lunch service with me, to which I presume most (if not all) of these folks occupy cubicles in the offices nearby. If this was the share of the market which Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang were hoping to capture, then by the looks of things, they’ve succeeded. But boy are the reviews terrible. As this restaurant approaches its one year anniversary, I wonder if the two chefs have sat together to reflect on the feedback. With Saint Oliver’s name plastered across the project, it was always going to attract attention, but it just seems so uncharacteristic of Oliver, it’s in total opposite to his everyman image. Barbecoa has such a premium level feel to it, that it would probably unsettle Jamie himself, if ever he was caught dining here. Now wouldn’t that be a sight for Jamierites out there. I rocked up in jeans and trainers, and I felt a little underdressed. The tricked out designer furniture store look wrapped in red velvet, rivets, shiny brass and double high ceilings is ace, the views overlooking St Paul’s is nice, but it is also intimidating. Since I arrived sans booking, I was shown a high table by the bar, solo diner, even though I spotted a few unoccupied tables in the dining room. After the bartender sat me down
I have never been to Denmark, with the way things are going with the rise and rise of Rene Redzepi, it looks like it will be a long while before I contemplate the Copenhagen trip. It doesn’t mean I’m not curious (obviously I am), you can already picture a Chinese guy perched over the dinner table, reluctant to eat anything till he has papped the dishes to death. All this sudden appreciation for Nordic food in the media is extraordinary. It’s still very new to us, for starters, Nordic cuisine is universally lumped together as an umbrella cuisine covering everything that includes Swedish, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian. Honestly, I do not know the differences between the respective cuisines. It just seems a little weird that all the fervent attention on Nordic cuisine hasn’t translated to a more comprehensive coverage, it’s like lumping Chinese in with Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and calling it Oriental. Then again definitions might be moot when observing the high end stuff because they hardly anything like the traditional cuisines they have sprung from. And it always looks good. Take for instance Maemo in Oslo – this stuff looks awesome, but nothing like what I ate when I spent some months in Haugesund, a coastal outpost of yatchs and rich kids awash with Norwegian oil money. What I ate was markedly unexotic. Crayfish, giant lobsters, sunflower seeds with
Pizzaro. One of a select group of individuals who masterminded the transformation of the Spanish perishable importer into a synonym for the British definition of a Tapas restaurant. He is a huge reason why we are so comfortable with the idea of sharing small plates of food, and thanks to the sheer dependability of the Brindisa restaurants he helped create over the last few years, his efforts has shaped this category of London restaurants. Yes, it is about the right time for José Pizzaro to his name on the signage and he has decided to do so by splitting it into two discreet projects. The latter is slated for a late October debut, a more civil sit-down affair that will formally bear his last name, Pizzaro. Until the real party arrives however, we have to make do with a sneak preview of his cooking with this teeny tapas bar situated in the heart of Bermondsey street, casually known as ‘José’. The space is seriously tiny, it’s like a food truck, except you eat with the chef inside the claustrophobic environs. It’s got bags of ambiance, and it is hugely popular at the moment. The lack of floor space (and chairs) is perhaps accidentally on purpose, it fills up by 6pm (on Friday nights, and every other balmy night, I imagine) and perhaps also accidentally on purpose, the casual exclusivity of
The smell of mushrooms, sizzling hot noodles and steamy soup. The knocking klikity klak of randomised synchronisation of high heels and colliding porcelain to the tune of a muzak of an epic eighties love ballad by Jacky Cheung, but above all of that a near enough constant stream of murmuring chatter in the background. Invariably this includes big round tables of women, babies, the next generation eyeing the next generation of the neighbouring big round table with the processions led by the belly laughter of silvering Chinese men. That unmistakable harmonious bustle is the very signature of a Chinese restaurant and as far as my experiences have taken me, it is an ambiance that is near enough the same the world over. My Taiwanese other half grew up referring to this particular type of Chinese cuisine as ‘yum cha’ , where you do drink tea, but really, the slang has more in common with Sunday lunch than afternoon tea. For me however, yum cha is dim sum (where she will say refers to pudding when I say tianping… on the same subject, when I say run – jo – she thinks I’m saying walk – pau) , and it is more of a tradition than a meal, a treat for soothing the heart and the only time of the week for the family and the closest friends to sit together
Newsflash. If you local to Finchley Road, you need to find this Korean restaurant. As far as I can tell, the 50% discount for their BBQ menu looks permanent. I’ve already been twice, and I think it’s a great value for money. So this discount may be some sort of shrewd marketing to undercut glitzier counterparts in central London, and in those terms, it doesn’t quite have the setting to match more expensive haunts. This place is modest budget stuff. Having said that, the 50% discount is incredibly generous. One shouldn’t expect to be see dry aged beef or lobster, but for the money, the quality of the meats is adequate. Certainly not worse that Koba. As a way of introduction, the Korean BBQ experience involves cooking sizzling meat over a hot pan dug out from a hole in the middle of the table, and if you’ve yet to try it, you should, it is one of life’s greatest pleasures. The rest of the menu is brief, in relation to Central London counterparts that is, but all the essentials are present. Like the kimchee, the seafood pancake, the soup, the glass noodles and amazingly, there are only three variants of the bibimbap : cooked beef, raw beef or vegetarian. They spent little time worrying about , the décor is numbingly plain, like a shabby café, its lean, mean, it’ll get
As you, I came upon Hedone filled with expectation. Fay likes it, Guy loved it, Andy – whose standards are as high as Taipei 101 – gave it a rare 8. So it must be fucking magic right? You’ll read alot of kerfaffle online about the birth of Hedone and its progenitor Swedish chef Mikael Jonsson, a trained chef, but who became a lawyer, before rediscovering his gastronome side with this restaurant. Curiously, I feel an aura of respect, which redoubtable comes across through the work of those food writers who visited Hedone. This is a rare occurrence. You’ll find similar glowing reports across egullet and chowhound too, and at time of writing, I believe this is what has contributed to its rocketing profile up the hypemeter. I visited for lunch and had to drag Mark along for I promised him that Hedone could very well change his life. Unexpectedly, he was late, blaming the fact that he took the wrong bus. I was obviously flipping about uncomfortably by myself when the eagle eyed waitress saw this, she brought me the daily papers to keep me distracted. Top marks for service then, granted choice was a little wanting in the Telegraph or the Times, I chose the latter. Proceedings kicked off as expected. A couple of amuse bouches that fit the conceptual, high cooking mould. I think the first was
Despite the narrative the web has spun around Galoupet, you should know that this is not a restaurant. Don’t come here expecting to be fed, because you will be a little confused. Even the decor strays far from the norm, like the faintly perfumery, sterile ivory walls and beech floors, mirrors on either side and (if memory serves) a skylight. There was so much light coming from all corners of the room, that we could only be here for a spa treatment. Such words are not usually applied to restaurant copy: ‘light, fresh, clean’ , ‘deep understanding’ , ‘adapted’. Let’s throw sensory in there too. This was as close an experience to having a detox treatment for the tastebuds… not that I’ve ever been to a detox session for any other bodily part. In practical terms, most of the dishes could pass as salads. There’s fruit in nearly every dish, I felt an eerie sense of being cleansed after the meal. Yes, fella, this is not the usual restaurant, let alone wine bar, there is something of an unorthodox approach going on here. The emphasis on the grapes are a refreshing change, there aren’t many wine-led restaurants in town, even though most restaurants will try their bestest to flog matching wines with the food, it often feels second best to the food; and for the case of the wine bar,
Ah, Chinatown. One can only love it and loathe it, at the very same time. I despise Chinatown like the way I despise the way Justin Bieber’s bobcut falls over his forehead. I may well be the last person in London who will write nice things about the state of Chinese food in London but at the same time, I love it for the very same reasons. Firstly, for the rude service, what was once a spectacle at Wong Kei, has now become a culture spreading rapidly across restaurants in Soho, perhaps even an act worthy of its own Westend matinee; Secondly and more pressingly for the transient standard of cooking – It could be great on Monday nights, but total piss by Friday noon. On the otherhand, whenever I exit Leicester Square station, the smell of roast duck, bbq pork (and piss) takes away any and all anxieties, hope is immediately restored in this culinary wasteland. The Sichuan fad was something I never fully understood, and am still scratching my head over. To me, it’s oil, sichuan pepper, luncheon meat, more oil, more bud numbing pepper and yet more oil. But you lot love this stuff, no doubt with a helping article or two from the revered queen of Sichuanese writing – Fuchsia Dunlop. Which leads me to the Empress of Lisle Street, the Queen of Sichuan food in
LifeDonk says: I didn't mind it, but I do read most of your stuff. I would be interested to read more about why you...
Kang L. says: Bunface - damn, that bad huh? Haha, whats wrong with the nose?? Gotta smell that stuff man! You're p...
bunface says: it feels a little like you're trying to be one of those guys who knows abou wine without the experti...
“..surrounded by the greatest wines of the world..” The dining room is relatively small...
A Prologue The first of a new series of posts I intend to write on a weekly basis. Not reviews per...
This is my 3rd visit to the fabulous Admiral Codrington in as many months. By now, you’ll have...
No doubt you’ve already heard about Ceviche, the first of a trio of Peruvian restaurants to...
Ah Norway. Good times. I spent some time in Haugesund a couple of years ago, for work, and I will...
I have asserted in the past that Bryn Williams is the most underrated chef in Britain, and that...
Rob & David’s eponymous restaurant has only just toasted its ten year anniversary. A...
Ah …Easter weekend. We drove all the way to the Sidmouth coast, to marvel at the bronze...
