Restaurants

Private Members Club. Three words often translated as: inaccessible, aloof and affected. Add ‘in London’ and it’s as good as an outstretched hand held vertically in front of your face. So, when I was invited for lunch at Blacks - a PMC in Soho, no less - my first thought was to check the dress code online, assuming I’d need to visit a long-forgotten area of my wardrobe for suitably smart attire. But, aside from a well-buried, ambiguous mention of ‘an...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food If some sort of culinary prohibition were introduced, limiting each national cuisine to be served only within its own motherland and thus forbidding any nation to serve even the slightest morsel of foreign food - would you choose to stay in Britain? It’s a question I’m asked surprisingly often, and my answer always ventures along the lines of applying for an ID card and boarding the first one way 12-hour flight to Tokyo. Yes,...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food With an already strong independent restaurant scene, it’s no secret that Brighton has witnessed a boom in popularity of the American-inspired gourmet burger trend in recent years. What with the local-favourite Burger Brothers close to the North Laines, gaining rapturous rave reviews from visitors, as well as the opening of MEATliquor, a London export that’s joined various restaurant chains within the city. At the very end of last year, InterContinental Hotels Group jumped on...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food At some point during our lives, many of us have spent at least one evening (still one too many) within the confines of an overly ostentatious themed pub or restaurant. Those that inspire us to lie, even to ourselves, in the hope of forgetting an establishment that is to good taste what Donald Trump is to common decency. Establishments that reap every opportunity to charge through the nose for an experience that’s often best...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Within some of London’s trendiest restaurants, the world of art is rarely far disconnected. A recent prime example is that of Mayfair’s Sexy Fish from Richard Caring’s Caprice Holdings: which, like most of his group’s restaurants was an instant smash hit addition to the area’s dining scene, with a table for two during a peak dinner hour still painfully arduous to secure. Aside from the apparently exceptional fish, and the celebrity clientele that frequent...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food As is the case with most of its neighbouring powerhouses, Novikov – the eponymous London flagship of Russian restaurateur Arkady Novikov – is very much a place to be seen. A social media friendly temple of excess, frequented by women that dress and often look like supermodels, joined by men (often three times their age) that look like characters from GoodFellas, and very little in between. Having opened a few years ago, the huge...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food With Mother’s Day fast approaching, and plenty of restaurants offering various special menus, here’s our last minute guide to the best restaurants to spend Mother’s Day in London this year. As far as London’s high-rise restaurants are concerned, the experience at Galvin at Windows is one of the finest. Located within the Hilton Park Lane hotel, incredible views across the city will be joined by a special Mother’s Day menu accompanied by a Bellini....

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food With plenty of exciting restaurant openings constantly taking place across the Capital, here’s our pick of the best new restaurants arriving in London over the coming month. Sosharu – Clerkenwell It’s been a long time coming, but Sosharu – the newest restaurant from Chef Jashon Atherton and Irha Atherton of The Social Company – is set to open next week. Marking the seventh London site from Jason Atherton, Sosharu will work as a Japanese izakaya-style restaurant, situated in...

Craft beer is facing somewhat of an identity crisis. On the one hand microbreweries are opening in Britain at a rate of one every other day according to figures from the British Beer and Pub Association, but on the other hand many of the more noted brands have been gobbled up by mainstreamism. Ask for a definition of craft, therefore, and you will get something in between size and taste. For most brewers the former is the most important characteristic....