Tag Archive: fine dining

Review: Le Gabriel, Bordeaux

Look, this is just getting ridiculous. Here’s a general request to all the fine dining restaurants I’ve tried in France over the last couple of years: pop out, buy one of the delicious little gateaux from any of the fine patisseries within a few yards of your restaurant, pop it on plate and present it …

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Review: Loves, Birmingham

I’m still trying to fall in love with Birmingham. Okay, I know where to find a decent coffee and a bite of lunch. I’ve also found a couple of (yes, two!) independent shops that I like. The Custard Factory is trying hard to be a bubbling little bohemian hotspot for artists and media types, it’s …

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Review: Story, Tooley Street

Customer: “That was a really good tasting menu. X and Y were particularly brilliant. I must admit though, we all thought the four desserts were a bit repetitive, all basically ice cream. One dish with a pastry element or a bit of cake might have been good…” Waiter: “To be honest sir, you’d never get …

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Review: Restaurant Nathan Outlaw, Cornwall

Sometimes I like to fool myself that I’m a local when I visit Cornwall. After all, I must have visited a dozen times. I know all the obscure villages; Praze an Beble, Indian Queens, Perranzebuloe, Mabe Burnthouse. I know how to pronounce Fowey and Mousehole (Fo’y and Mowz’l). And I never, ever, ever have brown …

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Review: 5 North Street, Winchcombe

It was very good of the owner of 5 North Street to phone me up a few hours before our booking to explain that they had no other bookings that evening. Not “…so we’re not going to open, sorry” as I’ve heard of happening elsewhere but “…so you’ll be alone in the restaurant, if you …

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