Restaurants

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food With the grand re-opening of The Fat Duck, statistically one of the globe’s finest restaurants, there’s a great deal of excitement within the West Berkshire village of Bray at the moment. In fact, there’s such a great deal of hype that the taxi driver who picks us up from Maidenhead train station automatically assumes that we need a lift to Heston Blumenthal’s pride and joy. He even seems quite disappointed that we’ve actually come...

Photo: Paul Winch-Furness By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Re-opened earlier this year in time to celebrate its centenary in 2017, The Ivy – London’s most famous restaurant and one of the city’s most prominent celeb haunts – has been refurbished and brought up to date (well, kind of) featuring a prominent central bar as well as new artworks from some of Britain’s most prestigious artists, most notably. Still unsurprisingly, albeit 98 years old, it’s still unbelievably difficult to book...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food In the lead up to the unveiling of its most unconventional Christmas scheme to date – ‘Journey To The Stars’ – iconic London department store Selfridges is currently preparing to open the fourth restaurant its series of ‘On the Roof’ pop-ups in association with restaurateur Des McDonald (Q Grill Chalk Farm, Frontier Room at Q Grill, Holborn Dining Room). Following the success of the most recent Vintage Salt, Forest Restaurant & Cabin Bar is...

Header photo: © Photopoint.com By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food When it comes to gourmet food, no nation excels quite so well as the French. So what better city than Paris for a food lover’s pilgrimage? The rightful home of the Michelin Star, as well as hundreds of humble patisseries, suave brasseries and cafés, plus some of the greatest produce that’s known to man. In fact, Paris is home to 72 restaurants with one star, 13 with two, and nine with...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food When restaurants are opened with names that fall towards the less helpful or imaginative end of the spectrum (street addresses included), there’s often an air of tremendous pretention. Thankfully, however, this is not the case with No. 11 Pimlico Road, an independent all-day venue that’s nowhere near as pretentious as its name or postcode would suggest. Opened at the beginning of 2013 in place of The Ebury, located between Victoria station and Sloane Square,...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Upon searching for the true origin of choux pastry, it’s almost impossible to find an absolute, definitive result. Some cookbooks name check a chef named Pantarelli (or Pantanelli) from the 1500s as the rightful inventor, using the dough to craft a gateau named pâte à Pantanelli. Others believe that the pastry’s origins stem from a more modern pâtissier named Avice - said to have created the first choux buns, which resembled cabbages (choux in...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food Opened right at the end of 2014, Enoteca Rabezzana is perched upon the southeast corner of Smithfield’s famous meat market. Essentially, a wine bar with its impressive list of almost 150 Italian wines, the venue does also include a strong focus on Italian food. Inside, the humble residence is cosy and inviting: there’s an open kitchen, a sleek tiled bar with a design that amalgamates into the flooring, and plenty of wine used almost...

By Jonathan Hatchman, Food Editor, @TLE_Food First opening its doors almost 90 years ago, tucked just back from St James’s famous Jermyn Street, Quaglino’s became a real dining and nightlife institution back in the 1990’s, having been taken over by Sir Terence Conran. Re-launched in the same year that I was born, unfortunately I never managed to experience the restaurant’s golden-era, however following another refurbishment – this time from D&D – Quaglino’s still seems like the ideal venue in which...

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. 45 Jermyn Street – Piccadilly Attempting to recapture "a golden age of glamour" with the reopening of the Fountain brasserie under the new guise of 45 Jermyn Street. Having originally opened within Fortum & Mason – London’s most British department store – six decades ago, the newly refurbished all-day restaurant will...