An accomplished brasserie with sophisticated food, mainly classics, executed to a high standard for the price point.
Tag Archives: good value
November
05
The Ivy, spreading its tendrils to Marylebone.
posted by Nicky Richmond
I’ve got a table for the new Ivy Café in Marylebone tomorrow, says Mr A, I know it’s short notice, but I thought you might like to try it. Short notice? Never a problem. As he said it, the vague memory of an Ivy opening in Marylebone drifted into my conscious mind. It had slipped […]
October
16
Bao. Stuffed in Soho.
posted by Nicky Richmond
It is a Monday lunchtime and a tedious morning has my brain looking for a food-based displacement activity. There is nothing calling to me within a mile of my office and I am not in the mood for polite conversation.
August
25
André Garrett at Cliveden House.
posted by Nicky Richmond
Shall we go to Cliveden, I say to C, who is sitting on the chair in the kitchen, playing with his phone. I am sitting at the kitchen table, preparing a schedule of mortgage requirements for a new client. Unsurprisingly, the tedium is leading me to thoughts of escape. There are only so many times […]
August
14
Rabbit and The Shed.
posted by Nicky Richmond
We have also the wines from success, said our waiter, in a thick accent of indeterminate origin, his ponytail pulled back so tightly that he had given himself a Croydon facelift. We decided to give the wines of success a miss when we worked out that they were wines from Sussex, not that I’ve got anything against […]
July
31
Chez Bruce. Safety first.
posted by Nicky Richmond
There is, I am told an unspoken rivalry between locals as to which is best, Trinity, Clapham or Chez Bruce, Wandsworth. My companion J, is very definitely Team Trinity and I sense that he is not entirely comfortable on enemy ground.
June
13
Portland and yes it is (mostly) Great.
posted by Nicky Richmond
#Firstworldproblems no 1: being irritated by the OpenTable booking message telling me I can only have the table for a two hour slot. #Firstworldproblems no.2 : being called by the restaurant two days before the booking, to remind me about the two-hour slot, in case I hadn’t seen it on the screen during booking, not […]
June
03
La Trompette. Top chow in Chiswick
posted by Nicky Richmond
Why are we sitting in this traffic says C, not understanding why we can’t eat somewhere local. It’ll only be about half an hour in the car, I say. Trust me. And anyway, I say, I just need to get out of central London and I want to go somewhere grown up. As we are sitting […]
April
21
Trinity. Cream of Clapham.
posted by Nicky Richmond
It’s the unfairness of it that rankles. And it’s not like I haven’t dragged myself across the river to Clapham twice already in the last six months, both times to visit the epicentre of current culinary derring-do that is The Dairy. It doesn’t seem entirely fair that the good burghers of Clapham have not one, but three restaurants I’d be happy to eat at any […]
April
02
The Heron, W2. It’ll give you wings.
posted by Nicky Richmond
I had tried, half-heartedly to get in once before, but the combination of a massive queue and ear-splitting karaoke screeching from the wall-mounted televisions was enough to see me off. It was Biker Barry who got me here in the end. I owed him for cat-sitting favours. Choose anywhere, I say. The Heron, he says, I […]
The Food Judge 