Restaurants

Most Londoners, I’m sure, would say we know all there is to know about Italian food. Who hasn’t had a ‘real’ Italian pizza in their life? Well, Enoteca Turi in Pimlico is on a mission to prove us wrong. Nestled just a short walk from Sloane Square station, this neighbourhood restaurant prides itself on bringing regional ingredients to our plates. Over the past 26 years, husband and wife team Giuseppe and Pamela Turi have been building their portfolio of regional...

When 108 Garage opened last October, the tiny restaurant soon became the object of rapturous acclaim. It seemed that, before the paint had even dried, the country’s most esteemed restaurant critics were professing the restaurant to practically serve the best food since the invention of sliced bread, despite the furniture. Needless to say, the matter of booking at table at a reasonable dinner time is still no mean feat. In the shadow of Erno Goldfinger’s iconic Trellick Tower, tucked away...

According to the people of Tripadvisor, Green Pea is London’s best Irish restaurant - a bistro and wine bar in an East Greenwich pub, just a stone’s throw from my home. Trumping the likes of iconic Irish Pub Waxy O’Connor’s, Green Pea is also joined by various branches of O’Neils (the chain pub) also within the top five. It would be unfair to criticise the TripAdvisor users’ choices – I mean how many people can be entirely mistaken in waxing...

Pride is a double-edged sword. To be in the right, I’ll take the most extreme measures, yet there's something oddly rewarding about being proven wrong, on occasion, especially when done with such pizazz, such finesse. At the beginning of last year, I visited Monica Galetti's pop up at the top of 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) for lunch. I'd never had the chance to visit Le Gavroche with Monica on board, but I'd heard great things, as well as...

Once a topic of controversy, even amongst the most carnivorous of us, veal (particularly Rose Veal) is becoming increasingly popular on the menus of high-end restaurants around London and the United Kingdom. A leading UK restaurant supplier, Lake District Farmers supply premium, breed-specific meats to fine dining establishments, providing customers with the full supply chain history. Working with a group of 50 Lake District-based farmers, the company renowned as “the hidden pearl of the Lake District” manages to produce some...

Just over a year ago, when Sartoria opened on the corner of Saville Row – like everybody else in London with a passion for food - I couldn’t wait to visit. Renowned as one of London’s finest Italian chefs (having previously worked at L’Anima), D&D London recruited Francesco Mazzei to run the kitchen of its swanky new venue. Bedecked with heavily starched linen and cutlery so heavily polished that neighbouring diners could be blinded with one misjudged mouthful – it...

A London fine-dining institution, lunch at Michelin-starred Galvin La Chapelle, behind Spitalfields, is an absolute delight. Instead of serving an exclusive menu of (often pompous) haute cuisine, the restaurant offers some of the best French gastronomic delights available in London, alongside one of the most stunning settings. The grade II listed location of brothers Chris and Jeff Galvin’s third restaurant has a long colourful history. At the end of the 19th century, the building was used as the parish of Bishopsgate and...

Imagine if Burger & Lobster were only to sell their overpriced burgers, if MEATliquor actually specialised in eco-conscious vegan treats, or if Le Gavroche were run by a Roman chef with a penchant for German brasserie classics. No, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but in terms of indication, the importance of restaurant names should never be overlooked. Just opened within the newly refurbished space at The Stafford hotel in St James, The Game Bird is as quintessentially...

By Jay Williams  Arriving early, I mooched around outside new Farringdon rib joint Hammer & Tongs just long enough to hear a member of staff outside muttering darkly into his mobile “we’ve got a reviewer coming in again tonight”.  Kind of how you might expect one of the three little pigs to say “we’ve got a wolf popping round again this evening”.  But after returning to our table later, a quick Google revealed the restaurant had recently been rinsed by...