Why do so many restaurants and cafes insist on putting cappuccino on their menu then serving up a huge cup of hot milk with a mouse’s bladder of coffee squirted into it and a spoonful of phlegm on top? Is it the misguided belief that bigger is always better? Is there a quiet majority of …
Category Archive: Fine dining
White linen, silver service, but not in Mr Michelin's book
Review: The Checkers, Montgomery
One thing a restaurant really can’t be blamed for is having to share a dining room with a big party of cheerfully noisy people. Indeed, as they’re likely to have a storming drinks bill it’s only to be expected that restaurants would actively court such parties. The Checkers is a cosy, friendly restaurant in the …
Review: La Trompette, Chiswick
It does get difficult reviewing restaurants that are very good but not explosively brilliant. Unless something interesting happened on the way to the restaurant, or there’s something on my mind I’d like to moan about, it’s hard to decide how to make the review interesting. As you’ll have spotted, my reviewing style is not to …
Review: Medlar, King’s Road
The guys who run Medlar spent many of their formative years at Chez Bruce and other Nigel Platts-Martin establishments, so if you think that might give you a clue to the kind of meal to expect at Medlar, you’d be exactly right. Think top-notch classic French cuisine without too much fuss and with the odd …
Review: Min Jiang, Kensington
For me Chinese has always been the ugly duckling of cuisines. It is spoken of as one of the three great originating cuisines of the world; French, Persian and Chinese. But my experiences of Chinese food in Britain have typically ranged from jolly tasty to utterly dire, with no hint of the snowy white swan …