It was not the most auspicious of starts. When my dining comrade and I descended on Bellazul it was pouring with rain. We arrived soaked. Welcome to England in April. It’s about as far from the Mediterranean as one could imagine. Open only for two months, Bellazul has the laudable intention of transporting diners to the sunnier climes of southern Europe. The venture is well-intentioned but does not totally succeed.
If New Quebec Street in Marylebone were my local high street, then I would be delighted. Luckily it is close to where your reviewer both lives and works. Zayna has been a long-standing favourite for curry. There’s also a great wine shop, a fishmonger and more. In addition, Boxcar is located on this street. Open since 2017, Gourmand Gunno corrected a long-standing anomaly by visiting it recently. Billed as a ‘neighbourhood restaurant’, it certainly constitutes a wonderful addition to the street, for both food and vibe.
From a modest café that opened over a hundred years ago, to a Michelin-starred celebrity hang-out, the history of the Ivy has been both varied and colourful. The brand remains an enduring one in the culinary world despite having opened Ivy spin-offs across the country, in towns such as Guildford. Its most recent venture has been to create an Asian sub-brand. Trading partly on its name, the ethos at Ivy Asia is full-on decadence with decent enough food to match.
A visit to Horma Ondo is an experience. Take in the views, enjoy the food and wine. This is the sort of place where one could comfortably spend a whole day. It’s located in the hills outside Bilbao and easy to miss if one does not know the way. Fortunately my host was a local to the area and successfully navigated the winding road up to the venue. Once there, we relaxed and enjoyed the restaurant to the full.
Reviewers that see any restaurant describe itself as “eclectic” have good reason – often through bitter prior experience – to be sceptical. When your venue has an absurdly pretentious name and is located on an expensive street in Mayfair, then the trepidation should mount further. MiMi, named with yet more absurdity in homage to a fictional empress who travels across China, is however worth a visit. There is substance behind the show.
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.
Est. India apparently offers “traditional, fine, urban” dining, per its website. Even if I would not necessarily choose to be so profligate with my descriptors, in summary Est. was a great venue with some impressively decent food.While there are some obvious classics such as the Korma and the Jalfrezi, it’s the novel that pushes the boundaries…
That there always seem to be queues outside every branch of Dishoom I have attempted to visit must surely be a sign that the operators of this now 7-strong chain must have hit upon a winning formula. Luckily enough my wait ended earlier this week when I lost my Dishoom virginity by visiting their Carnaby Street branch. There was no let-down, no anti-climax, just a desire to return.
Britain’s love affair with curry is well-documented and remains unabated. Restaurateurs therefore assume that it is a fairly safe bet opening yet more high-end Indian venues in swanky parts of London. Onto the scene late last year came Kahani – Hindi for story – backed by a top chef, formerly of Tamarind fame.
