Restaurants
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…
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…
After London lockdown, LA is like Disneyland
When I arrived a month ago, one wouldn’t believe LA was suffering a major pandemic. The roads were still busy…
The finest humous in England: Arabica food boxes reviewed
Restaurant-goers who cannot let go of restaurants — for professional or other reasons — are floating on a sea of…
The car industry is accelerating towards an electric future
Back in November, when Downing Street’s pandemic responses looked daily more incompetent, the announcement of a ban on sales of…
Piccadilly Circus, delivered: the Wolseley’s home dining reviewed
The Corbin & King dining and home entertaining box includes dishes from the Delaunay, the Wolseley and Brasserie Zédel ‘delivered…
A magical field hospital for vegetables: Turnips reviewed
Turnips is an haute cuisine restaurant inside a greengrocer in Borough Market in London. I suspect others will try this…
This replica is better than the original: The Ivy Oxford Brasserie reviewed
Oxford is not an easy city to homogenise; but that doesn’t mean you can’t try. I found a vast shopping…
The best food Italy can offer: Giannino Mayfair reviewed
Pity the gilded restaurants of Mayfair, if you can: they are dying. Some have reopened; they ache on like men…
Could ‘clean tech’ save the aviation industry?
What advice can I offer Alok Sharma, who took a pasting in the weekend press for his lacklustre performance as…
The rise of blocked-off design
Plexiglass bubbles hover over diners’ heads in restaurants. Plastic pods, spaced six feet apart, separate weightlifters in gyms. Partitions of…
Social distancing in Soho: The French House reviewed
London is gasping — so where to go but Soho, which is so good at despair? It is often necrotic…
Dear Mary: how can I avoid my friend’s awful favourite restaurant?
Q. Almost a year ago I attended the funeral of my godfather — a bachelor and distant relation whom I…
The apex of civilisation: the Connaught Grill reviewed
A ghost review, now, of a ghost restaurant: the Connaught Grill, which is yet to reopen after pandemic shuttered its…
My steak cooking lesson turned into a sitcom
Pandemic has brought many truths, the most minor of which is: I can’t cook steak. I thought I could. I…
A great Dane: Snaps + Rye reviewed
Snaps + Rye is a Nordic-themed restaurant and delicatessen on the Golborne Road, at the shabby and thrilling edges of…
In defence of Amazon
We should take heart from BP’s £5.1 billion second-quarter loss, accompanied by a halving of its dividend. What’s good about…
How busy have restaurants been this summer?
The other Argos The Argos catalogue, known as the ‘Book of Dreams’, is no longer to appear in printed form.…
Stringfellows with fish instead of women: Sexy Fish reviewed
Sexy Fish is an Asian fusion barn in Berkeley Square, near the car dealerships and the nightingales, if they are…
Returning to what makes us happy: Brasserie Zedel reviewed
Brasserie Zédel is a grand salon under Piccadilly Circus and the only place I desired when lockdown (or lock-in) ceased…
The extinction of the arts has been deferred – for now
The government’s £1.57 billion lifeline for the cultural sector was bigger than most practitioners were expecting — and drew a…
More drug than nutrient: KFC drive-through reviewed
Drive-through restaurants were invented so Americans could spend more time in their cars. I don’t blame them. American cars are…
Letters: Why we need music festivals
Disastrous decisions Sir: One cannot but agree wholeheartedly with Lionel Shriver (‘This is not a natural disaster’, 16 May). Given…
