Test Drives

What's so interesting about Baity Kitchen? Described as a ‘mood food’ deli , Baity Kitchen is quietly turning heads with a simple, middle Eastern based menu in well-heeled South Kensington. Although this casual spot’s deli offerings may not immediately turn heads, this is more than run-of-the-mill grab-and-go eaterie.  Baity Kitchen is taking a...

Why's The Mall Tavern of interest? The Mall Tavern has quietly grown in reputation as a neighbourhood joint worth travelling to. Chef Jesse Dunford Wood has trained up under some top names including Sydney's Mark Best, Michel Roux Jnr and Rowley Leigh. This year he was named Rising Star in the Tatler Restaurant Awards and when he invited Hot...

Street Kitchen, the travelling gourmet Airstream van dishing up lunch for Londoners has a new pop-up home nestled in the heart of the City, and Hot Dinners was invited along to check it out. A breath of fresh air for workers tired of Pret A Manger salads, Street Kitchen first caught everyone’s eye at the London Restaurant Festival. Since then,...

What is Roganic? Simon Rogan is best known for his Cumbrian restaurant L'enclume, a Michelin-starred restaurant which has carved out a serious reputation for serving challenging food from locally sourced ingredients. It's a restaurant praised highly by foodies and one which most recently made an appearance on Coogan and Brydon's The Trip. Roganic is...

What is Massimo?It’s a new London Italian restaurant run by Massimo Riccoli, who also runs the fish-only Rosetta in Rome. Where is it?Just near Embankment tube – inside the new Corinthia Hotel, another of the surprisingly numerous five star hotels to open in London in the past few months.  The Corinthia itself looks every bit the star, with plenty...

What is Adam Simmonds at Danesfield House?Adam Simmonds is the fine dining restaurant at Danesfield House, a luxury hotel situated in a massive 19th century mansion overlooking a bend in the Thames just outside Marlow. As you'd expect in this neck of the woods fellow diners are either hotel guests or local well-to-dos, but they should include...

Why are you trying Maze now? Isn’t everyone else headed in the opposite direction to Pollen Street Social? Well yes, the departure of Jason Atherton to open his own restaurant has meant the spotlight’s been off Maze recently, but new chef Alex Marks has put together an Unusual Pairings menu he wanted us to try and we’ve never liked following the...

What is The Gilbert Scott?The Gilbert Scott is a new venture from Michelin-starred chef Marcus Wareing. But there’s a reason his name isn’t over the door - he’s staying at the Berkeley, while The Gilbert Scott is presided over by Wareing’s protege Chantelle Nicholson who, together with head chef Oliver Wilson, has created a menu which draws on...

Backseat Batalis rejoice! A new chef masterclass series - otherwise known as culinary bootcamp for beginners - has been launched at Gordon Ramsay’s plush Belgravia eatierie Petrus. Diners are taken straight into the heat of the kitchen in full lunch service swing in a class designed to take the chef’s table experience up a notch. Hot Dinners was...

Hot Dinners tries out the New York inspired restaurant in Fitzrovia.

The past year or so has been something of a magic makeover for Covent Garden as it gradually transformed from being a culinary wasteland where only those who thought a tofu burger or Cornish pasty were the giddy heights of what the food world could offer would enjoy eating there, to something of a dining destination in its own right. Recently...

It's a lazy shorthand we know, but there's something to be said for eating in a restaurant where a majority of the customers hail from the same part of the world that the cuisine originates from. It does make you feel that the kitchen must be doing something right. So, when invited to try out the Santino Busciglio's Mennula in Charlotte Street,...

Inamo, the Oriental fusion dining brand which blends sushi and sashimi with iPod-style touch ordering, has been thumbing its nose at traditional London high dining for over a year with its Soho outpost. Flushed with success, the duo behind this innovative concept recently added to their stable with Inamo St James, perched appropriately enough,...

It’s been referred to as ‘the Japanese tequila’, but has never really found its feet in the capital. With very few dedicated tastings, bars or shops, how much do we really know about sake? Saki, a Japanese restaurant/shop/tasting room hybrid tucked unobtrusively behind Smithfield market, offers an authentic taste of the Japanese nectar. Hot...

Fifteen, Jamie Oliver's restaurant which sets out to give a leg up to youngsters, is one of those places that Hot Dinners has always intended to go to, but were put off by the alleged difficulty of getting a table. It hadn't even occurred to us to try the place for breakfast until we were recently invited to try the morning service out with a...

The recent relauch of the Savoy Hotel got so much press that another major London hotel revamp seems to have gone almost under the radar. The Four Seasons Park Lane closed n 2008 for just over two years for a £125 million overhaul using Pierre-Yves Rochon, the same designer as The Savoy to propel it into the 21st century. If you've been before,...

Movers and shakers in Primrose Hill may recall the past few years of Odette’s, the bar and restaurant set snugly amongst a row of Victorian houses, with mixed feelings. Its chequered past has involved a history stretching back to 1978, and most recently was under the leadership of Mark Powers (allegedly an uninspiring era). Now under the...

It must be emotionally draining to open a restaurant burdened with the high expectations that Dinner by Heston has had, and certainly Blumenthal and head chef Ashley Palmer Watts looked both exhausted and elated when we dined there on opening week. As well they might - for this restaurant has clearly been a labour of love for the pair of them...

Quo Vadis has always been a favourite Hot Dinners haunt (particularly whenever we manage to gain access to the members' club upstairs) so when we were invited to try out the new QV Bar, we may have reacted with rather unseemly haste. The QV Bar launched in January and occupies a space previously taken by part of the main restaurant. As owner Sam...

January can be a tough month for the food lover. Whether or not you’re facing the dreaded detox, or even braving an alcohol ban, there’s certainly a heaped serving of guilt that goes along with each decadent meal after a bloated Christmas period. Luckily enough, a few restaurants this month are proving that detoxing can be more pleasure than...