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 …
Category Archive: Fine dining
White linen, silver service, but not in Mr Michelin's book
Review: Odette’s, Primrose Hill
There is a new(ish) restaurant in Richmond which has a nice big sign beside the door that reads: “Richmond’s Favourite Neighbourhood Restaurant”. ORLY? D’you know what, I rather think the good people of Richmond will be the judge of that. The laurel of “neighbourhood restaurant” is something you earn by consistently providing good food at …
Review: The Bath Priory
This guest post was written by: Maureen “Sam is suffering from a leg injury, sustained while training for a cycling event”, said our waitress. “We’ve persuaded him to stay home the last couple of days but he insisted on coming in today for your kitchen visit”. So he did. And patiently answered our questions. And …
Review: Noma, Copenhagen
Noma is all about ideas, playing with convention, with ingredients, with presentation. With an objective eye I would have to say that the results are not always conventionally delicious. Those more challenging dishes become delicious through the medium of a palate that is hungry for new experiences, possibly even slightly jaded by a thousand prior …
Review: Drake’s, Ripley
Ripley is one of the amiably well-to-do villages of Surrey, surrounded by farmland and replete with boutique homeware shops, cosy deli/cafes and red-brick dining pubs. Yet even though Surrey is the most cushy and well-to-do county in all of Englandshire, for the longest time there was a desert of good places to eat twixt the …