Matthew

Author's details

Date registered: 11 September 2011

Latest posts

  1. Review: The Garden Cafe, Waterloo — 29 October 2025
  2. Review: The Barbary Next Door, Covent Garden — 29 October 2025
  3. Review: Rockfish, Brixham — 16 August 2025
  4. Review: The Club House, West Bexington — 16 August 2025
  5. Review: Da Mario, Kensington — 16 August 2025

Most commented posts

  1. TripAdvisor gives me indigestion — 13 comments
  2. Spicy beetroot soup — 11 comments
  3. Review: Noma, Copenhagen — 10 comments
  4. Spaghetti alla carbonara, essentially — 10 comments
  5. A gourmet and his gout — 9 comments

Author's posts listings

Review: Old Passage Inn, Gloucestershire

Categories:

Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

1 February 2015

Dear front of house. When a diner asks you for a recommendation, maybe between two or three dishes, they aren’t really asking you to name the best dish on the menu. They’re just undecided, they just want you to help them make their mind up. Batting the question back at them with a headmistress-y “I …

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Review: The Sportsman, Kent

Categories:

Michelin, Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

29 December 2014

The eerily drab Kent coast on a moist, cold November day with the last few leaves dropping from the trees. It’s gloriously Dickensian. The Thames estuary is a huge grey blanket the same colour as the sky and you can’t see across to the other side. The Sportsman doesn’t look like much from the outside; …

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Review: Spring, Somerset House

Categories:

Fine dining, London, Restaurant Reviews

21 December 2014

We never tried Skye Gyngell’s beloved lunch spot at Petersham Nurseries, despite living in Richmond for three years. I could never make the dishes as written on the menu match up to the prices next to them and had the distinct impression that this was more a place to be seen to be seen, a …

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Review: Svea, Cheltenham

Categories:

Cafes etc., Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

13 December 2014

Svea is to Scandinavian cuisine what Rules is to British cuisine – a dose of the traditional. I like the dining room. It’s on the ground floor of a quirky Victorian building just around the corner from the High Street, and is decorated in classically soothing Scandinavian colours with the occasional Swedish flag to remind …

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I don’t usually review the service…

Categories:

General Articles, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

3 November 2014

I don’t often say much about service in my restaurant reviews. Why not? Because I believe the element of chance in good vs not-so-good service is so great that whatever I say in my review, your experience will probably be different. I’ve found this to be true plenty of times: I’ve enjoyed great meals and …

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