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 …
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 …
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 …
Allow me to rave a bit about Brighton’s North Laine. I can go shopping for something inspiring in a half dozen different places – maybe Cheltenham, Birmingham, Gloucester, Bath, Oxford, Stow – and then eventually I happen to visit Brighton and take a wander through the North Laines and the Lanes, and I find exactly …
I have an irrational dislike of bars, restaurants and cafes who oh-so-cleverly name themselves after the house number they happen to occupy. Gosh! What clever! How imagination! Simple yet style! There’s a whole bunch of them in Cheltenham alone; Hotel 131, 288 Bar & Wok, 81 The Prom, and the cleverly named Number 7. Because …