Food
A slice above
It is a truism that there is never enough schnitzel (‘slice’, German); or, rather, schnitzel does not get the attention…
Just bring me a boiled egg
The Connaught Hotel’s formal dining room was always, to me, a place of childish myth; more comforting for being mythical.…
Soho consolations
Soho is so gilded nowadays that even drug addicts look down on it. The wasteland without must match the wasteland…
Spanish gold
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 is a new hotel in what used to be Bow Street Magistrates’ Court: a preening piece of mid-Victorian classicism…
Faking it
Whitcomb’s is in The Londoner hotel on the south-west corner of Leicester Square. The Londoner calls itself ‘the world’s first…
Totally bats
There is a Batman restaurant in London, or rather there was: Savini at the Criterion on Piccadilly Circus. Savini was…
The real Greek
Lemonia lives in the old Chalk Farm Tavern in Primrose Hill, which is better known as the set of Paddington.…
News from nowhere
The residents of Mayfair are misnamed: they do not really live here. They live in Mayfair like I live on…
Fit for a king
A French creole restaurant rises in the sullen ruins of London. It is called Louie, for French king or trumpeter,…
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 is not a pig in possession of a country house, but I would be for…
Damascene moment
Imad’s Syrian Kitchen is an eyrie off Carnaby Street, a once-famous road which seems to exist nowadays to sell trainers…
Ritz assessment
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Hogwarts and all
Harry Potter is a fictional orphan locked in a cupboard by his aunt and uncle, after which he discovers a…
Noble art
Noble Rot sits in Greek Street, Soho, on the site of the old Gay Hussar, which squatted here from 1953…
Paling into insignificance
The Roof Garden is a pale, Nordic-style restaurant at the top of the glorious Pantechnicon in Belgravia — formerly a…
Fork in the road
You cannot have cars and dining tables in the same dreamscape: it doesn’t work, unless you think carbon monoxide is…
Transported
The St Pancras Brasserie and Champagne Bar by Searcys is as expansive as its name, but ghostly. It is an…
Back to the future
The west end of London is still pale and necrotic, but there are points of light. Hatchards the bookseller is…
Our Zoom seder
This week my son came home from school and asked me if it was true that the Jews killed Jesus.…
Package deal
Restaurant-goers who cannot let go of restaurants — for professional or other reasons — are floating on a sea of…
Outside the box
The Stein’s at Home steak menu box (£65) says ‘Love from Cornwall’: it is not for people who live in…
Gritti drama
Dining in catastrophe used to be more interesting: but we must be fair. It was a smaller (and wetter) catastrophe:…
Ticking the boxes
The Compass Group boast of serving 5.5 billion meals a year, so you might think they would be good at…
