A small victory in a bad year: José Pizarro at the RA reviewed
Piccadilly is losing its patina of dirt, its cadaverous character. It is overpriced and over-renovated,a meeting place for luxury goods.…
Sentenced to chicken: NoMad reviewed
NoMad is a new hotel in what used to be Bow Street Magistrates’ Court: a preening piece of mid-Victorian classicism…
How to get drunk on tiramisu
You can get drunk on tiramisu. I have done it. It takes two portions at least. You drink (I mean…
Dregs of fake Provence: Whitcomb’s reviewed
Whitcomb’s is in The Londoner hotel on the south-west corner of Leicester Square. The Londoner calls itself ‘the world’s first…
The Batman restaurant that’s totally bats: Park Row reviewed
There is a Batman restaurant in London, or rather there was: Savini at the Criterion on Piccadilly Circus. Savini was…
Has Covid killed criticism?
A world without criticism is just advertising
The real Greek: Lemonia reviewed
Lemonia lives in the old Chalk Farm Tavern in Primrose Hill, which is better known as the set of Paddington.…
Why The Sopranos remains the greatest gangster drama of all time
The Sopranos – the greatest television show in history – far outshines its progenitors, says Tanya Gold
Dining in nowhere: Bar des Prés reviewed
The residents of Mayfair are misnamed: they do not really live here. They live in Mayfair like I live on…
Scarface’s lair with nibbles: Louie reviewed
A French creole restaurant rises in the sullen ruins of London. It is called Louie, for French king or trumpeter,…
‘Lifeless and necrotic’: Native at Browns is an ode to joylessness
Browns is a famous fashion boutique in deepest Mayfair. It occupies a curved cream townhouse on Brook Street, which seems…
High on the hog: The Pig at Bridge Place reviewed
The Pig at Bridge Place is not a pig in possession of a country house, but I would be for…
A Damascene moment in London: Imad’s Syrian Kitchen reviewed
Imad’s Syrian Kitchen is an eyrie off Carnaby Street, a once-famous road which seems to exist nowadays to sell trainers…
The politics of eating lobster
Lobsters like to live in gullies on the sea floor, or under sand, and I understand how they feel. But…
An utterly convincing dreamworld: The Ritz reviewed
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Harry Potter meets Ikea: Backlot Cafe reviewed
Harry Potter is a fictional orphan locked in a cupboard by his aunt and uncle, after which he discovers a…
A careful parody: Noble Rot Soho reviewed
Noble Rot sits in Greek Street, Soho, on the site of the old Gay Hussar, which squatted here from 1953…
Bird-brained: Brood, by Jackie Polzin, reviewed
This is not a novel about four chickens of various character — Gloria, Miss Hennepin County, Gam Gam and Darkness…
Bad food is back: The Roof Garden at Pantechnicon reviewed
The Roof Garden is a pale, Nordic-style restaurant at the top of the glorious Pantechnicon in Belgravia — formerly a…
My road trip notebook: castles, Charles Darwin and Churchill’s cuddly toys
Before pandemic I thought I might drive across America, or even France. Now — what about Kent, the garden of…
Pretty food with a side order of pollution: 28-50 reviewed
You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is…
Pleasing perversity: St Pancras Brasserie and Champagne Bar by Searcys reviewed
The St Pancras Brasserie and Champagne Bar by Searcys is as expansive as its name, but ghostly. It is an…
Back to the future: Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill reviewed
The west end of London is still pale and necrotic, but there are points of light. Hatchards the bookseller is…
Anti-Semitism and the far left
The comic David Baddiel has written a book which explains that much of the far left hates Jews. There are…
Spring lamb and the bread of affliction: our Zoom seder
This week my son came home from school and asked me if it was true that the Jews killed Jesus.…
