High steaks
Smith & Wollensky is a restaurant from The Shining: a terrifying American steak joint by the Thames, four months old,…
Foodies without the faff
I cannot review the Gay Hussar every time the Labour party behaves like a self-harming teenager (‘I don’t want to…
Comic relief
Mum’s, or to use its full title, Mum’s Great Comfort Food, is a restaurant in Edinburgh designed to soothe itinerant…
Jamie in chains
Jamie’s Italian is squeezed into the Devonshire Arms on Denman Street, Soho, borne on the duplicitous winds of TV shows…
Something fishy
Selfridges is skilled at making things that are not hideous (women) look hideous (women dressed as Bungle from Rainbow or…
Trattoria tour
The Gatto Nero — or ‘Black Cat’ — is in Burano, a tiny island in the Venetian lagoon. It is…
Chelsea carnivores
The Maze Grill is on a sinister street in Chelsea, between a small Tesco — a boutique Tesco? — and…
Myths and legends
The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is…
Grills just want to have fun
The Beaumont Hotel is a bright white cake in the silent part of Mayfair, where the only sound is Patek…
High anxiety
Fenchurch is a restaurant that is scared of terrorists. It cowers at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street, a skyscraper…
Goulash and whiplash
Ed is a plank. He was always a plank — and now he is in Ibiza being a plank. Plankety–plankety-plank:…
Square meal
The Portrait Restaurant lives at the top of the National Portrait Gallery, London. It is fiercely modern, but likeable. You…
Sharing Caring
The Ivy Chelsea Garden is a restaurant inside an Edwardian house disguised as a Tudor house on the King’s Road;…
A cemetery with cocktails
La Coupole, Montparnasse, is the grandest and most famous of the old pre-war Parisian brasseries; that is, if you have…
Kitty corner with the PM
David Cameron is too cowardly, or too cynical, to debate with Ed ‘Two or Possibly Three Kitchens’ Miliband — which…
Going large on Park Lane
The Dorchester Hotel, Park Lane, is a cake floating in space. All grand hotels create a parallel universe in which…
Beyond the Wall’s
I think Rowley’s is the perfect restaurant; but I am really a gay man. Rowley’s is at 113 Jermyn Street…
Poor little rich meals
Rivea (stupid name) is in the bowels of Bulgari in Knightsbridge, a hotel which looks like a vast Virgin Upper…
In Dracula’s local
Quaglino’s is an ancient subterranean brasserie in St James’s, a district clinging to the 18th century with cadaverous fingers. It…
Sugar rush
The Cereal Killer Café is a temple to cereal on Brick Lane, east London. It serves only cereal — and also…
Smock and awe
Somerset House, a handsome Georgian palace on the Thames, was once the office of the Inland Revenue, and the courtyard was…
Cornish and pasty
Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall,…
Station to station
Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa…
Dining with death
Beast is next to Debenhams on Oxford Street and it is not conventionally beast-like; rather it is monetised and bespoke…
Colonial cringe
Gymkhana is a fashionable Indian restaurant in Albemarle Street. It was, according to its natty website, ‘inspired by Colonial Indian…
