Hispania Review: The Name May Mean Land of Rabbits
Hispania Review: The Name May Mean Land of Rabbits | The Phoenicians got there first, saw a great many small burrowing animals, and named the entire peninsula after them
Tag: restaurant review
Galvin Review: A Bistro Was Never a Small Restaurant
Galvin Review: A Bistro Was Never a Small Restaurant | The word may come from Russian soldiers shouting for their drink in 1814, and the story is almost certainly false
Barrafina Review: You Cannot Book. You Will Never Book.
Barrafina Review: You Cannot Book. You Will Never Book. | A Michelin-starred tapas counter that has refused reservations for years and has a queue outside to prove it works
Coq d’Argent Review: The French Rooster Is a Roman Joke
Coq d’Argent Review: The French Rooster Is a Roman Joke | Gallus means cockerel in Latin. It also means Gaul. The national bird of France is a pun that got taken seriously.
Christopher’s Review: It Was the First Licensed Casino in London
Christopher’s Review: It Was the First Licensed Casino in London | A Victorian building on Wellington Street, a grand staircase, and a gambling licence granted in 1962
Boyds Review: On the Avenue That Was Built to Impress
Boyds Review: On the Avenue That Was Built to Impress | Northumberland Avenue was cut through in the 1870s to give London a grand boulevard. Nobody has ever loved it.
Opera Tavern Review: 4.8 From Two Thousand People
Opera Tavern Review: 4.8 From Two Thousand People | One of the highest genuine ratings in either survey, on a sample large enough that it cannot be explained away
VyTA Review: Italian Food in the Old Flower Market
VyTA Review: Italian Food in the Old Flower Market | The Covent Garden piazza was a working vegetable market for three hundred years. It nearly became a road.
Sketch Review: You Have Seen the Lavatories Even If You Have Not Been
Sketch Review: You Have Seen the Lavatories Even If You Have Not Been | A room full of white eggs, which is the single most photographed toilet on earth, and the restaurant is behind it
Giraffe Review: 7,789 Reviews and Not One Mentions a Giraffe
Giraffe Review: 7,789 Reviews and Not One Mentions a Giraffe | The Southbank’s global-menu family chain has been fed to nearly eight thousand people, none of whom asked the obvious question
Smith and Wollensky Review: Two Names Picked Out of a Phone Book
Smith and Wollensky Review: Two Names Picked Out of a Phone Book | An American steakhouse whose founders chose the name at random, and then built an empire on it
J Sheekey Review: Oysters, Actors, and Absolute Discretion
J Sheekey Review: Oysters, Actors, and Absolute Discretion | St Martin’s Court’s seafood institution has been feeding the West End since 1896 and telling nobody anything
Portrait Restaurant Review: The Best View in London, and a 4.2
Portrait Restaurant Review: The Best View in London, and a 4.2 | On top of the National Portrait Gallery, looking straight down Whitehall at Big Ben. Two hundred people have found it merely fine.
Heliot Steak House Review: You Are Eating Above the Polar Bears
Heliot Steak House Review: You Are Eating Above the Polar Bears | The Hippodrome’s restaurant sits in the old dress circle. Below you, where the roulette tables are, there was once a 100,000-gallon tank.
Maxwell’s Review: London’s First Burger, Still Going
Maxwell’s Review: London’s First Burger, Still Going | It opened in 1972, when Britain did not know what a burger was, and it has been in Covent Garden ever since
La Gamba Review: Named After a Prawn
La Gamba Review: Named After a Prawn | Fifteen hundred people have eaten in a restaurant called The Prawn and not one has remarked upon it
Kerridge’s Review: Pub Food, Reclassified as Fine Dining
Kerridge’s Review: Pub Food, Reclassified as Fine Dining | The chef who won two Michelin stars for a pub now charges over a hundred pounds a head at the Corinthia, and the trick is watching people not notice
Skylon Review: Named After Something Churchill Threw in the River
Skylon Review: Named After Something Churchill Threw in the River | The Royal Festival Hall’s restaurant honours a 1951 landmark that was scrapped for being too optimistic, and possibly turned into ashtrays
Soju Review: It Is the Best-Selling Spirit on Earth
Soju Review: It Is the Best-Selling Spirit on Earth | One Korean brand outsells every whisky, vodka and gin in the world combined, and almost nobody in Britain has heard of it
The Garden Bistro Bar Review: There Is No Garden
The Garden Bistro Bar Review: There Is No Garden | Eight hundred and twenty-seven people have eaten at a venue promising a garden, in Covent Garden, which is also not a garden
Blacklock Review: Chops, Stacked, Until You Ask Them to Stop
Blacklock Review: Chops, Stacked, Until You Ask Them to Stop | A chop house named after a nail-making foundry, which serves meat on a board in a quantity that constitutes a dare
Aik Sitar Review: One Star, and It Is Not a Rating
Aik Sitar Review: One Star, and It Is Not a Rating | A 4.7 from over seven hundred people on the Strand, and a name that means something considerably better than the numbers
Le Garrick Review: A French Bistro Named After an Englishman
Le Garrick Review: A French Bistro Named After an Englishman | David Garrick made English acting respectable. There is now a French restaurant named after him, in a cellar, near his theatre.
Rules Review: Open Since 1798, and Not About to Explain Itself
Rules Review: Open Since 1798, and Not About to Explain Itself | London’s oldest restaurant owns a moor, serves things that were recently flying, and has outlasted everything
Tapas Stories Review: The Tapa Was a Lid
Tapas Stories Review: The Tapa Was a Lid | It was a slice of bread over the glass to keep the flies out. Britain has turned it into eleven small plates and a sixty-pound bill.
The 10 Cases Review: When It Is Gone, It Is Gone
The 10 Cases Review: When It Is Gone, It Is Gone | They buy ten cases of each wine and then never buy it again. It is a business model that sounds insane and is not.
Balans Review: It Was Open When Nothing Else Was
Balans Review: It Was Open When Nothing Else Was | A Soho institution that served food at four in the morning for thirty years, which is a public service
Banana Tree Review: Every Banana You Have Eaten Is a Clone
Banana Tree Review: Every Banana You Have Eaten Is a Clone | The last one was wiped out by a fungus. The current one is genetically identical to itself, worldwide, and the same fungus is back.
Scarlett Green Review: 4.8 From Eleven Thousand People
Scarlett Green Review: 4.8 From Eleven Thousand People | The second-largest sample in five postcodes, at one of the highest scores, and the explanation is not complicated
Barrafina Review: They Will Not Take a Booking and That Is the Point
Barrafina Review: They Will Not Take a Booking and That Is the Point | You queue, you sit at the counter, and you watch the food being made – and the constraint is what makes it work