It started with a faint twitch, or nervous restlessness. There was an almost involuntary desire to pull out the phone and snap away. Your author even managed to resist the temptation to quiz the servers about what made their dishes special. As an (unintentional) experiment, Gourmand Gunno spent two consecutive nights in restaurants without a plan to review either.
Carthusian monks were onto a good thing 900 years ago when they settled in Priorat. Located in the foothills of Catalonia, this remote region was the source of a monastery called Scala Dei. Translate the Latin to English and you get ‘stairway to heaven’, an apt metaphor for the dining delights of the area. A burgeoning boutique food and wine scene is underway in the region, as your reviewer and his comrades discovered on a recent trip.
In a world where first impressions count, many diners might naturally be put off Satyrio. Not only could the exterior do with a face lift, but to get there, visitors must navigate liminal London. Located on Aldgate High Street, Satyrio feels like it neither quite swanky City nor trendy Shoreditch. Step inside, however, and there is a lot – even if not everything – to like about this venue.
Your reviewer really wanted to like Sagardi. He has been visiting the Basque region for over 20 years, had one of his best meals of 2024 there and fell in love with Ibai when it opened in London last June. Fronted by a chef from the region and with other successful Sagardi branches around the world, there was so much to like on paper. Walk into the Shoreditch venue and you will be wowed on first impressions. We were let down though by both food and service.
Every neighbourhood should have a good Indian restaurant. Colaba ought to be West Hampstead’s. Named after a district of Mumbai, its quality of cooking would put it close Dishoom. However, our quartet left Colaba feeling severely underwhelmed by its service. Improve this and the venue could be a local star.
Tom Sellars has been a name to watch in the restaurant industry for some time. Few have sufficient talent to open their first restaurant at the age of 26. To then go on and garner two Michelin stars is an impressive feat. Dovetale, located at the heart of the 1 Hotel in Mayfair, represents the next chapter in his story. Throughout, there has been a consistent emphasis on combining class with playfulness. Both were on show at our recent visit.
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.
Mayfair does not lack for high-end restaurants, but 20 Berkeley pulls of the act of creating something totally novel. Think of it as a breath of fresh air relative to the style over substance vibe of nearby Amazonico, Bacchanalia, Novikov or Sexy Fish. There’s nothing showy or ostentatious about 20 Berkeley. Rather, it wears its class with subtlety; understated charm rather than self-conscious bling. It’s very British, and in being so, fills a gap in the market.
When your reviewer was at primary school many years ago, he was told to avoid using the adjective ‘nice’ whenever possible, since it was a bland filler. We were instructed to try harder. If you’re launching a restaurant and even if you wish to show homage to a major city in the south of France, just don’t put the word nice in your name. It also opens the way for reviews titled “not so.” My hackles were therefore raised from the outset. Much of the crowd dining there (showy, glitzy, with their fast cars parked very nearby) didn’t do it for me either, but the overall experience was… pretty nice.
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.
On paper, it all sounded so good: a Turkish chef who trained under Yotam Ottolenghi but built his own brand working at Soho House opens his first outlet in trendy Soho. No expense has been spent on the décor, with some beautiful tiling and a lavish bar with countertop dining. Nonetheless, you can’t buy atmosphere and neither the food nor the service quite hit the highs we were hoping for.
Brighton has a burgeoning dining scene. Sea views, wealthy locals and proximity to London all help. Gourmand Gunno paid his annual visit to the south coast city to check out Murmur. Despite its curious name, the visit was a success. Not all was perfect, but with good sunshine, company and alcohol, this is a pleasant venue to while away part of the day.
“I’ve never eaten good Mexican food in London” was what Gourmand Gunno’s dining comrade for the evening had told him when the two of us first discussed where we might go for our semi-regular supper outing. Your reviewer is fortunately a huge fan of all things Mexican, having first travelled to the country over 25 years ago. The good news – both for Gourmand Gunno and his then-sceptical comrade – is that London is now awash with ‘proper’ Mexican restaurants. Cavita is a welcome addition to the scene.
Beware any review that uses expressions such as ‘hidden gem’, ‘redefining a genre’ or ‘homage to authenticity.’ But then consider that clichés do serve a useful purpose, to capture the essence of any venue in an easy to recall fashion. All the above would apply in large doses to Supawan, a serendipitous new find.
Gourmand Gunno has had a long-held mantra that bad service trumps good food. Every time. What about the inverse? He and his long-suffering vegetarian dining comrade recently visited Assaggi, a Notting Hill Italian stalwart. While the venue gained a two-out-of-three success rate (just about) on my trio of dishes, my comrade’s culinary score was a big round zero. A return visit would, however, be in order. Full marks to Assaggi for atmosphere, service and drinks, even if the kitchen could do with upping its game.
Say German cuisine to most people and the image that will likely form is one of sausage, served with some form of dense starch, either bread or potatoes. Say fine German dining and you might get a wry smile, raised eyebrows or the suggestion that you’re talking wurst (as the locals would say). Consult the Michelin guide though, and what it shows is that Germany commands ten restaurants with three Michelin stars, a comparable number to the UK (eight), given its larger population. Our group was lucky enough to visit Schanz, one of Germany’s most-garlanded restaurants, last week. We came away mostly wowed.
There was one particular moment at Humo when your reviewer had to struggle hard to keep a straight face. The server was introducing our trout and caviar starter. He highlighted how the trout had enjoyed its life in a river in Hampshire before meeting its death in an Ike-Jine Japanese fashion which is supposed to minimise pain by paralysing the nervous system. Conveniently for diners, it also preserves the quality of the fish fat. Said trout is then smoked over oak. It is next topped with 3-month aged caviar, which is stored at exactly minus one degree in order to promote freshness. Perhaps it was the earnestness of the description. Maybe it was the length of time it took. Sure, we all want to be entertained when we go out – and have no doubt, there is no shortage of quality on show at Humo – but it was hard to escape the notion that the venue just took itself a little bit too seriously.
There is something delightful about stepping one block away from any busy thoroughfare and finding yourself almost in a different place. Notting Hill’s Uxbridge Street has an almost olde worlde feel to it. It’s certainly an antidote to the tourist-heavy Portobello Road nearby. Being off the beaten track seems an appropriate setting for Akub, a new Middle Eastern restaurant, where Fadi Kattan and his team are cooking up a quiet revolution.
1994 might seem an age ago. At the time, your reviewer was just beginning university and rarely visited a restaurant unless benevolent relatives were paying. It was also the year when Fergus Henderson and his team created a culinary revolution when they opened the original St John restaurant in Smithfield Market. With it came the pioneering concept of ‘nose-to-tail’ cooking. This was (and remains) the place to go for offal. It is pleasing that a second St John venture has recently opened in Marylebone. Based on a recent visit, it can be every bit as good as the first.
How do you make a restaurant both cool and of its place? One simple answer is to involve the Sethi brothers. Their JKS Group is behind many of London’s perennially on-trend restaurants. Despite their Indian roots, the team has done it again, taking the former venue of Xu and turning it Thai. Our recent visit to Speedboat was a marked success; a happening vibe with some superb food to boot.
Copenhagen does not lack for outstanding eating, garlanded chefs or Michelin stars. Anyone who is interested in food and has not heard of Noma must probably have been living in a cave for the last decade. The challenge for any chef in Denmark’s capital city is to do something genuinely noteworthy, that guests will remember fondly, start talking about and just might become the next big thing. Mielcke & Hurtigkarl is not new – it first opened in 2008 – and does benefit from being housed in a stunning 17th century building, but it represents one of the most exciting things happening in Copenhagen cooking currently.
Have no doubt, Caia is cool. Certainly if you’re young and trendy, but even your mid-40s reviewer could appreciate its zeitgeist. Maybe it’s the perfect 2020s venue; a mix of cocktail bar, restaurant and music lounge cum nightclub. While it was hard to fault the atmosphere, this is not a place that lends itself naturally to dining. Food is just part of the experience. A future visit would likely see your reviewer having a pre-dinner drink here and then moving on elsewhere to dine, perhaps even to next door Maramia.
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.
Step into Socca and you can almost kid yourself you might be in the Mediterranean. Sure, no expense has been spared at this venue (as is evidenced by its prices), but it is testament to the team that they have been able to create a warming vibe at Socca, from décor to ambience via its food. Think of Socca as an updated take on La Petite Maison, taking the culinary genius of Claude Bosi and the design aesthetic of Samyukta Nair (Koyn, Jamavar etc.). It has all the hallmarks of a Mayfair classic in the making.
