If restaurants are experiences more than merely meals, then Sibilla plays in the premier league. The approach tells you everything you need to know: perched on a hillside above the river Aniene, guests know that they are set for a show. Combine a stunning location with top-notch local cooking plus a comprehensive wine list and you have a winning formula.
Keep it simple and do it well is a mantra that more restaurants should follow. If Barrafina were not enough for fans of all things Spanish, then Parillan, from the same team, takes things to another level. There are few better outdoor spots to eat and drink, sit back and relax anywhere in London.
Reader, rest assured, all the animals you may consume at Happy Lamb did enjoy good lives. The menu delightfully informs diners that not only the lambs, but the cows and the deer too, not forgetting the ducks, led initially happy lives. Many were ‘grass-fed’ too. It’s hard to fault the relentless optimism pervading the venue. The nosh is pretty good too.
There’s a certain skill attached to opening a restaurant less than three months ago, yet making it feel as if it’s been there forever. Osteria Vibrato does just that. It fits perfectly into the Soho zeitgeist and is a classic in the making.
It does exist: Michelin-quality Indian cuisine in the suburbs. Look no further than Surbiton’s Koyal. Chef Nand Kishor Semwal and his team have pedigree. If you can earn recognition at Trishna and Gymkhana, then running your own restaurant is the next logical step. Koyal makes it seem easy. Diners love it too, with every table occupied on a recent visit.
Reader, rest assured, all the animals you may consume at Happy Lamb did enjoy good lives. The menu delightfully informs diners that not only the lambs, but the cows and the deer too, not forgetting the ducks, led initially happy lives. Many were ‘grass-fed’ too. It’s hard to fault the relentless optimism pervading the venue. The nosh is pretty good too.
When you enter a restaurant and it’s brightly lit and almost deserted, things can go one of two ways. Either the evening will be a complete disaster, or this is a hidden gem that we shouldn’t be shouting about too loudly lest its popularity suddenly explodes. The Hunan Man fortunately falls into the latter camp, albeit after a decidedly inauspicious start.
Don’t break a winning formula is a useful principle. It’s one adhered to by the chefs at Honey & Co. Now in its second location (on Lambs Conduit Street, opposite Noble Rot), everything that made the original a success has been replicated here, in a larger and more grown-up setting. With the two owners hailing from Israel and having both worked under Yotam Ottolenghi during their careers, diners can rest assured that they will clearly be in good hands.
It’s rare for sceptical restaurant reviewers such as your author to be positively surprised by totally new culinary experiences. It’s even rarer for them to occur in a venue situated minutes from the British Museum in tourist-heavy central London that you could easily walk past without noticing. Abeno, which bills itself as “Europe’s original specialist okonomi-yaki restaurant” proves that you should not judge restaurants by either their location or exterior. Come visit and be positively surprised.
If the website of L’Oscar is to be believed, it is “a food lover’s lair.” On reading this, I reached for my dictionary and was reminded that lair means “a place where a wild animal, especially a fierce or dangerous one, lives” and alternatively, in Scotland, “a burial plot in a graveyard.” Neither is perhaps naturally associated with a dining venue. Sure, there was wild animal – in cooked form – to be consumed. Meanwhile, the combination of a low ceiling with oppressively dark lighting did bear some resemblance to a mausoleum. It’s hardly an enticement to dine.
The owners of the Rosewood Hotel seem – after several iterations – to have hit upon a winning formula for their restaurant. They have created an all-day brasserie of modern British classics with a few twists. It’s worked for years at the likes of the Wolseley or the more recently renovated the Ned. Similar to the latter, the Rosewood benefits from a glorious history and diners get to enjoy the spacious marble-pillared room which used to house Pearl Assurance…
