Restaurants

When Adam Handling opened The Frog in the grounds of the Old Truman Brewery, the chef’s menu was ambitious to say the least. At the chef’s first restaurant proper – following a stint at Caxton - Handling demolished the rule book, demonstrating skilled fine dining technique with dishes to be enjoyed in an intentionally casual, comfortable space. Street art adorned the walls while 1990s hip-hop sound-tracked the gastro parade of powders, smears and intense fermentations. Although the restaurant’s initial critical...

Summer, provided it isn’t a total washout, is one of my favourite times of year in London. It’s these long warm days that encourage us to explore the city: its various parks, terraces, rooftops and beer gardens. Considering the unusually hot weather we’ve had this year (that’s us done for the foreseeable, I imagine), I wouldn’t blame you if you hadn’t felt the usual urge to escape for a week in the Mediterranean, as many of the inhabitants of our...

Contemporary Latin American cuisine meets Mayfair chic in Mark Morrans’ latest venture MNKY HSE. The stylish restaurant is hidden behind a discreet entrance on Dover Street rubbing shoulders with Aston Martin, contemporary art shops and a plethora of other late night venues competing for the celebrity dollar on a street that plays like an A to Z of the rich and famous on most evenings. An elegant lounge is decked out with a pristine wooden DJ booth as a focal...

Launching on Friday 7th September, Tom Griffiths’ Flank will host a series of Friday evening pop-ups, taking place until the end of October. Operating from Old Spitalfields Market, Flank was one of the most exciting new openings of 2017 and received a rare five-star review from TLE soon after opening. Initially launched as a pop-up in Brighton, the restaurant opened in London as part of the new development of kitchens around the market, overseen by Ten Ten – a creative organisation headed up by Nuno...

With plenty of exciting restaurant launches constantly taking place across the Capital, we pick London’s best new restaurant openings taking place over the coming month. Kym’s by Andrew Wong – City One of the year's most exciting new restaurant openings, Andrew Wong is set to open Kym’s in the Bloomberg Arcade. Following the huge success of his eponymous restaurant near Victoria, Kym's will be a modern ‘premium casual’ Chinese restaurant, named after Andrew’s parents’ restaurant opened in 1985 – reopened...

During 1898, diamond magnate Woolf Joel hosted a dinner for fourteen guests at The Savoy – one of London’s most iconic hotels. Just before dinner commenced, one of Joel’s guests cancelled, reducing the party size to thirteen. Against the behest of more superstitious guests, the host decided the dinner should go ahead, already warned that death would befall the first person to leave the table, according to an old wives’ tale regarding dinner parties of thirteen. Woolf Joel defiantly decided...

Arguably one of the most gastronomically diverse cities in the world, London is home to countless restaurants and pop-ups focusing on the cuisine of far-flung nations. Given its relative locality and a clutch of acclaimed chefs, however, the food of Portugal remains dramatically under-represented here. The city’s Portuguese restaurant scene has been over zealously described as ‘burgeoning’ of late, following the opening of Londrino and Bar Duoro, but according to TripAdvisor, Nando’s still occupies four of the top ten Portuguese...

Like much of the Kent coast, Folkestone has been the subject of much regeneration, of late. Long gone are the beach arcades, the mouldering Magic Mouse rollercoaster and the Sunday Market: a haven for cleaning products, mystery meat from the back of a van and snide Calvin Klein underwear. Once God’s waiting room, a terminal for troops to sip one final cup of tea before crossing the Channel to fight in France, Folkestone’s Harbour Arm is thriving in 2018. Reaching...

Stretching from the lower Rhône River to the Italian border, Provence’s regional cuisine is responsible for some of France’s best-loved, most internationally admired dishes. As a result of its Mediterranean climate, Provençal cuisine is deeply rooted in a trinity of olives (the king of Provençal cuisine), garlic and herbs de Provence: oregano, rosemary, thyme, savory, marjoram. In a similar vein to Gascon cuisine, Provençal food is decidedly rustic, unlike the world-famous haute cuisine typically associated with the country. In her...