Even three years after opening, it is still very hard to get a table at the Tamil Prince. And rightly so. The restaurant may be off the beaten track, located in a restored pub in Barnsbury, but perseverance pays off. Get lucky with a booking (they can only be made 28 days in advance for a venue that has just 40 covers) and make the visit. Diners won’t be disappointed.
Pubs were pretty grim places to eat forty years ago, when Tina Turner sang “we don’t need another hero.” Fortunately, a lot has changed for the better in the world since. To witness the pub in 2025, diners should check out the Hart in Marylebone. Brought to London by the same team behind the Hero (and the Fat Badger), we need more pubs like this.
There is something wonderfully comforting about a roaring log fire, particularly on a blustery day. The one at Hartwell House, a Jacobean pile now owned by the National Trust on the edge of the Chilterns, was a particularly good and warming one. It was also, arguably, the highlight of our recent visit. Food was forgettable and service left quite a bit to be desired.
If Soho’s Kingly Court dining complex is an incubator for restaurants, then Goldies is destined for bigger things. Perhaps we should not be surprised, since it is backed by the team behind the now sadly closed Blanchette. The angle at Goldies is comfort food in a casual dining format. Guests might not want to leave.
If you wanted to create “the most accomplished and ambitious project devoted to Spanish gastronomy in Europe,” then the City of London with its staid suited bankers might not be the first location that springs to mind. Regardless, Hispania – whose website is the source for this quote – is a gem of a venue. Décor, food and ambience all provide a reason to visit.
Even three years after opening, it is still very hard to get a table at the Tamil Prince. And rightly so. The restaurant may be off the beaten track, located in a restored pub in Barnsbury, but perseverance pays off. Get lucky with a booking (they can only be made 28 days in advance for a venue that has just 40 covers) and make the visit. Diners won’t be disappointed.
Pubs were pretty grim places to eat forty years ago, when Tina Turner sang “we don’t need another hero.” Fortunately, a lot has changed for the better in the world since. To witness the pub in 2025, diners should check out the Hart in Marylebone. Brought to London by the same team behind the Hero (and the Fat Badger), we need more pubs like this.
A venue without either a formal entrance or a menu might not be everyone’s idea of a fun experience. But this is precisely the point. Create a mystery and you make things kind of cool. There’s a cachet value – you’re either in on it, or you’re not. Such is the zeitgeist of 2025 London. Overcome your prejudices and visit the Fat Badger. You will not be disappointed.
Few may have heard of Thomas Cubitt, but many may have visited the mini pub chain that is named in his honour. For the unaware, the gentleman in question was a British master builder, renowned for developing much of the late Georgian and early Victorian architecture that defines London. Wind the clock on to the 21st Century and many of his buildings have been reincarnated as up-market pubs.
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.
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.
Like Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22”, it was love at first sight for your reviewer when he stepped into the Parakeet. Full marks for décor, vibe, service, food, drinks and pricing. This was the broad consensus view among our party of four but – and you knew there was going to be a catch – the Parakeet failed in one crucial respect: if you’re vegetarian, then you’re very poorly catered for. This should be fixed to make the venue truly excellent.
There is little more comforting than a proper pub, especially on a bitterly cold day in early January. Since its reopening in late 2022, Mayfair’s The Barley Mow – a venue with history dating back more than two centuries – has, once again, become a firm favourite among locals. Rightly so. Both the downstairs pub and the more formal dining room above deserve a visit.
It was hard not to enter or leave the Devonshire without a broad smile. Open for only four weeks, it has become one of the hottest tickets in town. Even early on a Monday lunchtime, the front of house told us that she had already had to turn away six parties. Your reviewer felt justly smug, having booked when the Devonshire first opened. Two happy hours later, our group of three all left well sated and could comfortably have stayed for longer, had the real world not intervened.
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.
When visiting a part of England not known to your reviewer, the natural response is to do some research beforehand. On this occasion, it involved asking several friends and colleagues who hailed from/ had visited the area. All were unequivocal in their approbation of the Gunton Arms, a view echoed by the local taxi driver who drove us to this destination. Fortunately, the advice paid off. If on the north Norfolk coast near Cromer, then this is the place to go.
A name such as the Pig and Butcher leaves little to the imagination; you know what you’re likely to get. We were impressed therefore to see not only an elevation and execution of all things meaty, but also delivery on dishes beyond the obvious. That the Pig and Butcher, an Islington gastropub, has been operating for a decade and was packed on the recent weeknight evening when we visited is testament to its success.
The Waterway is a marked improvement on its predecessor, a grim pub called The Paddington Stop. It benefits from wonderful canalside views (assuming you don’t look the other way at the housing estate) but its food and drink experience was quite mixed. There’s a lot of potential. but also clear room for improvement.
Walk roughly ten minutes north west from St John’s Wood station and you reach a quiet and leafy residential street that speaks of prosperity. Nestled on one side – blink and you might almost miss it – is the Clifton. When my comrade and I visited on a recent weekday lunchtime, every table was occupied, and service was perhaps correspondingly somewhat slower than we might have hoped for. Sure, a minor irritation, but the Clifton is the sort of venue where it would be easy to while away an afternoon or longer.
