Test Drives

Airport food is certainly getting more sophisticated - it's come a long way from the days when a soggy panini and a flabby croissant were the best you could expect. Now - after Gordon Ramsey's Plane Food and Heston's The Perfectionist's Café at Heathrow - Bruno Loubet is bringing his Grain Store concept to Gatwick's South Terminal, with a...

Here at Hot Dinners we like a good cocktail. We also like chocolate. But mixing these two lovely things together tends to conjure up images of the sickly sweet, syrup-laden glasses that we haven’t looked at since uni. So when we were invited to preview the new Chocolate Cocktail menu at Rivington Grill Shoreditch in association with super-cool...

It's the latest restaurant from the people behind Gymkhana, taking over the space left by Koya. Can Hoppers live up to huge expectations? We find out. 

If this bar shows what the future holds for Londoners - then the news is all good.

This was an instant London hit from the moment it held its star-studded party, but the food at Sexy Fish is worthy of its own space in the spotlight

We pop back to Connaught Village for another new opening - this time it's the very impressive Italian restaurant Bernardi's.

The luxury brand Burberry cafe now has a breakfast menu - we went to check it out.

There are many reasons to love autumn: not least the bounty of seasonal produce on offer, from pumpkins to chestnuts. To celebrate - Rivea London, the Alain Ducasse restaurant in the swanky Bulgari Hotel, is putting on a special chestnut themed menu for the next month. It might be a high-end place, but they've kept a sense of humour: every dinner...

  On a recent brisk Tuesday evening we had the pleasure of test driving Joyeux Bordel cocktail bar. Joyeux Bordel translates in French to ‘happy mess’ and not ‘happy brothel’ as you may perhaps prefer to believe. We left feeling very happy, and thankfully not in a messy state. Joyeux Bordel is the sixth bar from the legendary Experimental Cocktail Club...

Ingredients you'll never have heard of and a dining room that makes you want to linger - we Test Drive the new Modern Pantry in Moorgate

We head to Kentish Town to try the new high street steak and beer joint

We head over to Connaught Village (just a little to the west of Marylebone) to check out the next from the people behind Donostia. They've expanded just across the road with Lurra, offering a new focus on Galician food - particularly steak.

We take a look at the fourth Wright Brothers in South Kensington, their first attempt at creating a seafood restaurant which focuses on neighbourhood dining.  

Le Pont de la Tour has just thrown open its doors to the public again - we head down there to see what's new.

We head to Fitzrovia to try out the new restaurant from Allan Pickett, who's cooking a very impressive menu of French cuisine using British ingredients.

Hot Dinners popped along to Oxford Street last night to one of a series of dinners being held at Selfridges for the store's Meet the Makers series. Last night was the first of a two night stint by National Chef of the Year Russell Bateman of Colette's restaurant at The Grove. Bateman was introduced by his former boss Daniel Clifford from...

Artesian at The Langham has been named World's Best Bar three years in a row, so clearly they're doing something right when it comes to cocktails. But now this world class cocktail lounge has a bar food menu to match. We reported recently on the arrival of the SNAX tapas menu, created by the hotel's Executive Chef Chris King, in consultation with Michel Roux...

We head to Fitzrovia to check out the latest pub to be taken over by The Cornish Project, the classic Newman Arms on Rathbone Street.

Wood-fired, Roman-style pizzas cooked in minutes - we went to see if Pizza Union was as good as it sounded

We head along to try the newly revamped and relocated Chutney Mary in St James and spot some familiar locals too...