One key rule in marketing is that if you name something with a homophone then be prepared for the obvious jokes. Mour, a new Mediterranean restaurant, is not a homage to Moorish cuisine but an abbreviation of the street (Seymour) on which it is based. If its website is to be believed, “life is better with more.” Your reviewer agrees with this sentiment and did enjoy Mour but was left wanting – cue the inevitable punchline – more.
If restaurants were judged on names alone, then Paradise ought to win prizes. Located minutes from one of the most famous Victorian cemeteries, the resting place was immortalised in a 1927 GK Chesterton poem. In The Rolling Road, he declaimed “for there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.” Your reviewer was disappointed that there were not more fine things on offer at a recent visit to this W10 restaurant.
Not that your reviewer knew it at the time, but it seemed kind of fitting that DJ Seinfeld’s club classic “These Things Will Come To Be” was playing when he walked into Island on a recent evening. There is a lot to like Island, but there are also some major flaws. Island feels kind of stranded at present, in need of a more coherent gameplan.
Italy may not be in this summer’s football World Cup, but were there a similar competition for food, then the country would be a sure-fire championship contender. For everything that is great about Italian food, diners should visit Ida, a neighbourhood gem in northwest London. A trip to this venue is like stepping into a bona fide trattoria.
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.
Italy may not be in this summer’s football World Cup, but were there a similar competition for food, then the country would be a sure-fire championship contender. For everything that is great about Italian food, diners should visit Ida, a neighbourhood gem in northwest London. A trip to this venue is like stepping into a bona fide trattoria.
Let me make a confession at the outset: I’ve never liked Queen’s Park. The northwest London district a step beyond Maida Vale just doesn’t do it for me. I think it’s a combination of the smugness of the people (there are a lot of yummy mummy types there as well as wannabe hipsters who aren’t quite daring enough to move east) combined with the down-at-heel train station followed by streets of dreary semi-suburban terraced housing. And there aren’t any good restaurants. Or at least that’s what your reviewer thought before visiting Carmel.
