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.
Take an iconic London museum which has just had a makeover, open a restaurant on its top floor with stunning views over the city and install a proven chef in its kitchen and you should be onto a winning formula. Proof of concept lies in The Portrait, the new opening in the National Portrait Gallery, fronted by Richard Corrigan. Visitors now have good reason to come and appreciate both art and food.
Ask most people to put Myanmar on a map and they would probably struggle. Try and name a Burmese dish? Well, that’s a much bigger challenge. Fortunately, for the culinarily curious, Lahpet provides a perfect introduction to the country’s cooking. Both its founders have Burmese heritage. They are intent on bringing Burma (as they choose to refer to it) to the masses. What began as a Hackney concept in 2017 now comprises two restaurant venues, in Covent Garden and Shoreditch. There deserve to be more.
A neighbourhood restaurant in Covent Garden sounds like an oxymoron. Crowds of tourists are likely to deter even the most hardened Londoner from having to visit this part of town – unless there is good reason. A trip to the 10 Cases would be one such excuse. Since its founding just over a decade ago, the restaurant has stuck to its knitting and gained a justifiably loyal set of followers.
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.
If you have a winning formula, then why change it? Going to Ave Mario is about much more than having a meal; rather, it’s an experience. Your reviewer cannot recall the last time he visited a restaurant anywhere in London on a weekday lunchtime where many of the diners had dressed up as if for a night out…
The Spaniards were well ahead of almost every other nation when it came to the concept of ‘sharing plates.’ The term tapas is indeed as ineluctably associated with the country as bull fighting or Sangria. Nowadays, bull fighting is, of course, considered distinctly cruel and unnecessary, and the same could arguably be said of the pairing of orange juice with red wine. Yet tapas lives on. And rightly so. Small dishes mean diners have the opportunity to sample a wide range of offerings and see the full extent of a chef’s talents. However, where are those talented chefs? Not in London. I have yet to sample tapas anywhere across the capital that comes close to what might be consistently available in even the most humble of Spanish establishments. Barrafina did little to change my impression
I am full of plaudits for Terroirs. A group of five of us had a table in the corner downstairs last night and from my vantage point in the very corner I was able to look out at the whole restaurant. Unsurprisingly, every table was taken, but – as trivial as this may sound – everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves.
