News & reviews

A couple of interesting upcoming restaurant openings hit the hot-dinners.com radar in the past few days – most notable of which is the news that thrice-Michelin-starred chef Heinz Beck is heading to...

The biggest news this week is that, according to a report released by Harden's, London restaurants are currently defying the  recession as restaurant closures are at their lowest rate since 2000...

The credit crunch's effect has widened to include this year's Time Out magazine Restaurant Awards, resulting in the creation of two new categories to please its sponsors - the Spanish Tourist Board...

Heston gets a perfect 10Heston Blumenthal has made up for all the bad news earlier this year with a slew of positive stories, the latest of which is that, for the second year running, The Fat Duck...

Hot Dinners was invited to test the wares, as it were, at the May Fair Bar on Berkeley Street. Hailing from the northern parts of the city, and not having a trust fund to interest the merchants of...

There could be such a thing as a free dinner...Fay Maschler reveals more information about the upcoming London Restaurant Festival in today’s Evening Standard, including the particularly cheering...

A couple of departures from the London restaurant scene were revealed this week. First off - Eric Chavot is to leave the The Capital restaurant.  After ten years and two Michelin stars, he's looking to...

It's fair to say that Marcus Wareing and Gordon Ramsay weren't on each other's Christmas card list last year.  About a year ago, with an acrimonious split at Petrus in the offing, Wareing hit out at...

Lucky, lucky bankers. Not only are they already back earning squillions with their big bonuses, but they’re also the intended guests at a seriously high-end charity banquet where top chefs will cook...

Hot Dinners bumped into TV chef Phil Vickery this week doing, of all things, a promotion for Aldi’s range of Christmas food. We couldn’t help asking him whether he’d ever think of opening his own...

We first reported the plans back in May, and now the London Restaurant Festival has been officially launched today by Boris, and will be chaired by Evening Standard food critic Fay Maschler and...

Hot Dinners talks Michelin stars and business savvy with Gidleigh Park's chef Michael Caines and finds out where a two-Michelin-starred chef eats out when he's in London

Now we were going to lead this week’s news with the entirely proper and grown-up news item about Angela Hartnett’s big award. But then we read this story about Britain’s Got Talent star Stavros...

Richard Vines at Bloomberg has managed to get some more information about Heston Blumenthal's new venture at the Mandarin Oriental from the man himself. In a new interview, Heston tells him that the...

Heston’s London-bound in as Foliage closes As first reported by Hot Dinners back in April, Heston Blumenthal officially confirmed this week that he'll be opening a restaurant at the Mandarin...

Hot Dinners exclusive To Taste of London (reviewed here) this week, where Hot Dinners happened upon a pair of top chefs with a lot of good things to say about London diners. First up was Gary Rhodes who...

We’re only in the business of writing about restaurants, rather than running them, but having spent a largely fruitless hour or two searching London’s restaurants for special Father’s Day lunch...

A really interesting article in the FT this weekend looked into the trickle-down effect restaurant chefs can have on what we culinary footsoldiers find to buy in our butchers, farmers markets and...

If you were one of the foolish/unlucky wage slaves to have to battle the forces of evil to get to your office this morning rather than working (relaxing) at home, you'll be glad to hear that there...

If you really want to ensure a packed restaurant night after night, the solution is clear, get your owner onto a reality TV show, pronto. Hot Dinners spoke today to Alex, restaurant manager at The...