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.
India has the world’s largest population and is the seventh biggest country globally when it comes to land mass. Given its size, it is only reasonable to expect huge variations in its cuisine. Most Indian restaurants in central London tend to embrace the food of Mumbai (Bombay), with a few nods to Gujarat and Delhi. Chourangi is therefore a very welcome addition to the London scene. Its mandate is to showcase “unexplored flavours of India”, with a specific emphasis on food from western Bengal.
It was with high anticipation that Gourmand Gunno returned to Gymkhana for the first time since its recent garlanding as London’s only Indian restaurant with two Michelin stars. High hopes often leave scope for disappointment and while the food certainly pleased, in the final assessment there is no way that Gymkhana deserves both its stars.
There’s always something very satisfying about discovering a new restaurant, particularly when it’s on your doorstep and you’ve walked passed it many times without crossing the threshold. Why the prior reluctance, readers may justifiably ask? Dhaba@49 is not located in the most salubrious part of the district and the predecessor curry house on its site was distinctly underwhelming. More importantly, scepticism overcome and meal completed, this is a venue very much worth revisiting.
Brits have a well-known love for both curry and Chinese cuisine. What happens then, when you mix the two? India and China share a border and so some crossover must be inevitable. There has also been a long history of migration, with the Hakka of Canton having moved to Kolkata, bringing along with them many of their cooking techniques. It is this vein that Fatt Pundit happily taps into. Others should follow.
Diners would perhaps be surprised to know that “the ultimate destination for the best Indian food in London” is tucked away on an unprepossessing side street in what could only generously be described as St John’s Wood. The hyperbole does speak to the ambition of the Three Falcons. If not quite an ultimate destination, the venue has certainly hit upon a winning formula that deservedly should be repeated elsewhere in London.
As most readers will surely be aware, two of your reviewer’s passions are food and books. Where better then to combine them than at The Cinnamon Club? Although the venue is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary and its founder (Vivek Singh) has become almost a household name, the sense of awe when entering the Grade Two-listed old Westminster Library never wears off. Two floors of books cover half of the available wall space. It was a nice touch too to see the bill delivered in a copy of Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, perhaps appropriated from one of the shelves. In between, the food was also damn good.
Vivek Singh, for many, is a household name when it comes to the world of Indian cooking. His flagship venture, The Cinnamon Club is now over 20 years old, he is a regular on BBC cooking programmes and has published 8 cookbooks. With such an esteemed background, Singh does not need to prove anything. Cinnamon Bazaar, his latest venture, is testament to this: it’s a fun and informal take on India’s culinary heritage. The menu sees Singh go to town happily with no shortage of experimentation.
Restaurant reviewers by their very nature tend to be a sceptical bunch, with high expectations and hard to please. Just as goalkeepers are often remembered for the bloopers they concede rather than the saves they make, truly bad service always trumps cooking of whatever standard. Even with such a jaundiced world view, Gourmand Gunno can confidently state that his curry at Manthan was one of the best he has enjoyed recently.
Hello, it’s 2022. Maybe Chutney Mary hasn’t realised. Maybe it’s stuck in time, still in the era when it had premises in Chelsea rather than now in St James. But back in 2015, there was this thing called the… er, internet. Yes, Chutney Mary does have a website, but it has to be one of the most clunky your reviewer has seen for some time. It doesn’t even show the restaurant’s current menu. This disappointment represents an appropriate metaphor for a recent evening spent at the venue. Chutney Mary has much to do if it wants to stay relevant.
Founder chef Saransh Goila doesn’t lack ambition. Rather, he may be suffering from a case of severe hubris. Read his website and it boldly claims that he has turned butter chicken “into a religion” in India. Enter his first London outlet and the sign that greets diners asserts that they will receive “quite simply the best butter chicken in the world.” With the bar set so high, disappointment is inevitably the only outcome.
As soon as your reviewer learned that the JKS Group was opening a new venue in Mayfair, he was excited. For those unaware, the venture has been responsible for hits such as Trishna, Gymkahana and Bridgadiers (plus many more). What’s the winning formula? Employ an A-grade chef , have amazing design and serve up top-quality food.
Does London need yet another Indian restaurant? Well, if it’s as good as Pali Hill, then yes. Indian cuisine in the central part of town is a highly crowded and competitive market and so restaurants really need to be doing something either very good, very different, or ideally both in order to make a mark. When two comrades and I dined recently at Pali Hill on a midweek evening, we came away impressed.
In many ways, Jikoni is the perfect place to go for a meal in these strange times. Consider that the restaurant’s name means ‘kitchen’ in Swahili. The emphasis is – and always has been – on informality; almost as if one were stepping into the proprietor’s kitchen. There are no airs and graces here. The principle of style over substance is almost inverted at Jikoni – an appropriate mindset, perhaps, for the COVID-19 world…
What to make of Brigadiers? To many, the notion of a restaurant modelled on the army mess bars of India and located in the heart of the City might seem like a thoroughly off-putting prospect. Sure, much of the clientele is male and suited, and therefore not to everyone’s taste, but forget this and come for the food – you won’t be disappointed…
Fed up with too many over-priced meals billed as ‘progressive Indian’ in central London? Then head to Kingsbury, just beyond Wembley for one of the most satisfying curry experiences in town. Club Marina may not be much to look at from the outside, but the food is some of the best in this style of cuisine that can be found…
As one of the ten biggest cities in the UK with a population of around 800,000, Sheffield ought to have an exciting dining scene. However, prior to a recent weekend in the city with old friends, it was somewhere I had only visited twice previously in my life. I went to Sheffield with an open mind and came back impressed. How typical the two venues were of the city’s dining scene it is hard to gauge, but our experiences on both nights represent a wonderful microcosm of much that is exciting across the UK’s overall dining scene. In summary, it is a story of both constants and reinvention.
