Category: Rest of UK

Outside of London

Review: The Sportsman, Kent

[singlepic id=700 w=280 h=210 float=right]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 …

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Review: Svea, Cheltenham

[singlepic id=699 w= h= float=right]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 …

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I don’t usually review the service…

[singlepic id=692 w=320 h=240 float=right]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 …

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Review: Silo, Brighton

[singlepic id=693 w=320 h=240 float=right]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, …

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Review: Number Seven, Cheltenham

[singlepic id=686 w=320 h=210 float=right]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 …

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