Any pub that employs a chef with credible restaurant CV now feels it has the right to append the prefix ‘gastro’ to its name. Many have installed josper grills or wood fires to buttress their claims. Renovate on old boozer may earn extra points. The Baring doesn’t try too hard. It doesn't need to either. This neighbourhood venue lets its quality speak for itself.
Your reviewer’s only previous visit to a Georgian restaurant was a disappointment. The passing of time and a desire to be open-minded provoked a recent visit to a new venue purveying Georgian cooking. It was well-conceived, but ultimately underwhelming.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Oxford students will take every opportunity to show off their erudition. With this maxim in mind, when your reviewer and eight of his chums returned recently to their Alma Mater for a reunion weekend, he was reminded of the famous line of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” In simple terms, the places where we dined some thirty years ago have stood the test of time.
Harrow is famous for its school, perhaps its eponymous hill, but little else. Although it is located less than ten miles from where this reviewer grew up, he was not aware of its dining options – until recently. Step forward Jay Rayner. I have long been a fan of the restaurant critic of The Guardian and have enjoyed several of his books, including My Dining Hell. This is a summary of his most damning reviews. 19 of the 20 places subsequently have shut. Fortunately, his recent piece on the incongruously named Panda’s Kitchen was praiseworthy – and rightly so.
People love to make lists, however arbitrary they may be. KOL is one of only two UK restaurants to rank in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, placing at number 17. It must, therefore, being doing something very good. Your reviewer had written two highly praiseworthy pieces about KOL in the past (see here and here), but a recent visit to the venue demonstrated to our group of four – all of whom were previously familiar with KOL – just how much it had raised its already strong game.
It’s a difficult feat for any restaurateur to pull off. Intrepid diners constantly want to be surprised by the novel, to boast that they are eating cutting-edge, boundary-pushing cuisine. The sub-Saharan African dining scene, especially at the high-end, has been long-neglected in London. It also provides a fertile ground for experimentation, where even more seasoned and sceptical diners such as your reviewer can be impressed. Look no further than Akoko.
The stork, after whom this restaurant is named, is famous for the long distances (up to 2,000 miles) that it can travel. That’s an impressive achievement and so is the ambition of the backers behind Stork, whose aim is to bring the joys of both African food and its broader culture over many miles to other cities. While the concept is laudable, your reviewer felt that Stork remains on a journey. To continue the bird metaphor, great you’ve travelled so far, but now you seem a bit tired to perform.
Do you know your egusi from your abula? This reviewer certainly didn’t and had only once previously tried anything close to Nigerian food. That was almost four years ago in an over-priced and far from authentic restaurant in St James. Fortunately, this gap in Gourmand Gunno’s culinary knowledge was recently rectified after the kind offer of a Nigerian friend to take me to his ‘local’ in the far reaches of south east London. It’s certainly worth the ten-minute train ride to Lewisham from London Bridge for a taste of what Nigeria has to offer.
Part of the beauty of the London dining scene is that there is a plethora of choice. Like the citizens of this city, there is huge diversity. However, the darker side of the city’s culinary dynamism is that it is relentlessly Darwinian: if you don’t get it right, you will fail. The statistics bear this out: some 50% of central London restaurants shut within a year of opening. I fear Ikoyi may be one of them.
