london restaurants

anyone know anywhere near marylebone i can go for an hour this evening while i wait to meet some friends - a café or quiet bar would be good, somewhere where i can write.

Cafe on the corner across from the main entrance to the station is friendly, if not always quiet.

Re: Clerkenwell, the Barbican is probably your best bet if not booze-related, otherwise just go to the Dovetail Bar or somewhere and have pre-dinner drinks. There are dozens of good drinking options round that part of town.

ok so i ended up at honey & co in the end and holy shit was that the right choice. cannot recommend this place highly enough. the food!!!!!!

the mezze set is the best option, like a taster menu for the starters, and if there's a starter not on it they'll happily swap it in (which we did for what turned out to be the star dish of the night - chicken liver baklava with grape molasses). the artichoke heart salad was really incredible too. main courses were so deep and rich and warming (slow cooked chicken in currants and pomegranates for me, slow cooked lamb with rice and almonds for him). the pistachio cake (served with sour cream, which actually really worked) was a hit too. only -ve was that our main courses arrived just as we were finishing our starters - we did take our sweet time over the mezze set but it would have been nice to have a break between courses.

but the food, oh my god, made up for it x 1000.

has anyone been to archipelago restaurant on cleveland st? we passed it on the way back from honey & co, it seems to specialise in strange/exotic meats (alpaca, python carpaccio etc). looks intriguing and all but there's the worry it might be gimmicky/the food might not be the best? can't find much in the way of reviews.

has anyone been to smokehouse in islington yet?

went to hoi polloi last week and that was pretty great - little bit try-hard with the smart-casual-hipster vibe but when it came down to it the food was very good

(nowhere near as mindblowingly excellent as honey & co though, have literally been having dreams about returning)

lex i went to archipelago once (on a groupon deal.. when it was nearer warren street) - It was kooky but the food was quite good, it was enjoyable as far as I remember! The 'eccentric' decor reminded me of LMNT a bit

At the time there was a very attentive waitress who seemed like she's been there for years (told us the restaurant used to be called the birdcage and served normal food then owners decided to do something different).

any recommendations for mid-range places in the West End, good on a Saturday evening, modern British/French/steak house? Cheers!

brasserie zedel? mid-range prices in high-end setting

oooh that looks good, thanks lex

I've been to Archipelago as well - the food is actually pretty good when it could be just gimmicky, and cosign the point about the friendliness of the staff. It's reasonably expensive and the portions aren't huge though.

So Zedel is booked out on Saturday, any other suggestions anyone?

Just so I'm not all "take, take, take", I went to Bone Daddy's in Soho the other week, and had just about the best Ramen ever, with a soft-boiled egg. Also a side of really great fried chicken, and good beer to boot. They do make a thing of playing hard rock/hair metal which I can live with personally, but might put others off.

Yeah it puts me right off, esp when Koya (which I love so much) is just round the corner.

As far as good modern British in Soho goes, it is probably worth trying 10 Greek Street, we were in there last Friday from 6ish and there were tables available through to about 7.45 when we left. I'm used to a permaqueue there, but maybe that's died off a bit. Could have been a weirdly quiet night, of course.

Great ramen there alright. Flesh and Buns is owned by Bone Daddies, I've heard it's good but not been yet myself. Not Brit/French/steak tho obviously.

xpost

I've heard good things about Koyo too, though apparently the fried chicken isn't as good.

Will have a look at 10 Greek St, thanks!

Andrew Edmond will likely do you a decent steak too, and it's a charming place AND you can book.

hello hello, meeting my brother for pre-gig meal in camden, am thinking byron becz we are povvos and also lol like burgers, but is there anything better we could eat, like maybe fried chicken or something? i haven't really hung out in camden for half a decade or so.

Haché, just off Camden High Street, does pretty good burgers as well.

The Crown & Goose, which is further down towards Mornington Crescent is really good as well and not too pricey, sort of gastro but very pubby with it. It's closing down soon but as far as I know is still open.

lovely, thanks Matt

Was in Ape and Bird, Russell Norman's new pub in Soho, at the weekend. Pretty good, a little pricey if it wasn't the soft launch, the basement cocktail bar is cool though. So few decent/spacious places for a drink in "theatreland" or where you can get a pint of something that isn't mass-produced piss - it's worth keeping in mind.

Given its location it surely won't remain spacious for that long unless they basically run it like a restaurant? I like the concept but it's a really difficult location, everywhere around there ends up as a vertical drinking establishment pretty quickly.

Went back to the Delaunay yesterday evening, still excellent. Tom Jones was having a drink at the bar.

Thanks for the Andrew Edmunds recommendation upthread Tim, had a very good meal there Saturday, even though it was pretty cosy!

That place is great imo. Quite festive.

yeah it was an early Xmas meal with the folks so we pushed the boat out a bit, lots of decent wine inc. dessert wine, cheese for afters etc.

:) Glad that worked out!

new ritas sounds good: http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/restaurants/fay-maschler-reviews-ritas-bar-and-dining-8997242.html

fay maschler one of the few readable food critics too.

that phtoos funny

We popped along to Peckham Bazaar (Greeky mediterranean business, cooking dome outside on a grill-pit thing) on Saturday lunchtime. It was almost fully booked; apparently Maschler gave them a 4* review the other week and business has picked up considerably.

More importantly: bloody hell it was good in there, bettetr than last time, I think. We decided to share the whole of the starters menu rather than go for a main and we were happy we did so. A little partridge pasty thing was amazing, baby octopus and chickpeas even more so. Best of all, surprisingly, was a chicken soup which might have been the single best soup I've ever tasted.

We looked up the review on the internet: http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/restaurants/peckham-bazaar--restaurant-review-8951717.html "London's latest hip foodie hub"? I don't think so, not by a long way, but I'll be very pleased if more things of this quality open up round our way.

I'm sure the food is excellent there but I've heard appalling things about that place, mostly involving their taking a booking for a ten-person birthday group who then turned up to find the place shut up, with the lights off and no one around, with the manager refusing to answer their phone. Maybe an innocent explanation but this seems like extremely shoddy behaviour to me.

That's awful! That happened to me once at The Seagrass on Chapel Market; I never forgave them and never went back.

I've been to Peckham Bazaar twice and the service has been disarmingly friendly (though you do sometimes get the impression they're one step away from chaos). Have you heard other appaling things, Matt?

No that's about the extent of it but it's pretty awful.

Yeah I agree: as I say I'm still sore about the one time it happened to me.

My experience so far at Peckham Bazaar has been so positive so far that I'm unwilling to think ill of them. They've just extended their opening hours, as I understand.

Nopi tonight, looking forward to it. He's one of my favourite recipe-book cooks, keen to try the official version.

Reckon I'll be able to book a table for two (me and my mum) for next Tuesday? It's my MA graduation the day after and I want to treat her to dinner somewhere nice locally (I live on Rye Lane) so that seems pretty ideal. Just don't want to have a burger at the Victoria really. Any other suggestions - bar Silk Road - are appreciated.

Ganapati is great, heard good reports of the Begging Bowl.

In related local news, had a pretty good Burger Bear burger at the Old Nun's Head last Saturday - would gladly partake again - but it came with the worst cheesy chips *ever*. All stuck together and cold. Bleurgh.

i had one of his ages ago on roman road, was very nice.

any of you recommend good takeaways that deliver in east london? i usually get the szechuan place on roman road but i've been rinsing that a bit too much of late. i've googled extensively and it's v hard to find useful info. rosa's thai delivers, i guess that's meant to be good?

anyone ever used this site? https://www.deliverance.co.uk/

yeah i would be interested in that as well...

and glad you tried that place on roman road!

i used deliverance a few years ago a couple of times and it was pretty bad. i mean, not inedible, but nothing special considering how they sell themselves. no idea if they've improved.

and glad you tried that place on roman road!

it's amazing! they deliver through the just eat site.

xpost yeah deliverance seems untrustworthy to me.

IT'S NOT A RESTAURANT, and its selection of uncooked food ain't so great, but dammit if Haringay farmers market isn't a great place to eat on a sunday. Can whol-stomachedly recommend the bleeker street burgers van, and also the italian stall, and also the wood burning ovened pizza. Not tried the jerk stall yet, but that's next on my list.

xxxxxxp Ganapati is probably still the best place to eat in Peckham. The restaurant in the South London Gallery isn't bad either (not amazing but a nice room, good service and well-priced). Begging Bowl is dreadful.

What was bad about BB?

xpost haha we disagree!

DY: I like Begging Bowl quite a lot, but I'm not going back for a bit at least: last time I went there the service was ridiculous (they do the small plates "oh things arrive when they're ready" thing but the kitchen only seemed to be able to do one of their (approx) 10-dish menu at a time, so you'd see a wave of dish X come out of the kitchen then wait another 10 minutes and a wave of dish Y would emerge, etc etc). Their sticky pork is ridiculously tasty.

I'm sure you could book a table at Peckham Bazaar - after Matt's news it might be worth triple-checking that they'll be open! - but be warned that it's not what you'd call cosy - it's a bit spartan in there. I think the food's really quite a lot more exciting there than it is in Ganapati, which I also like.

My other real local faves, places to which I'd be delighted to take my dear old mum, are on Lordship Lane: Toast (surprisingly classy small plates and a wine specialism, super nice and enthusiastic staff) and Franklin's which I love unto death, meat-heavy and at gastropubby end of restaurant.

Elsewhere on Lordship Lane are a number of curry, Turkish and Thai places of varying quality. I'm on a bit of a downer on The Palmerston - the prices seem just too high for what you get.

Any of you tried the Peckham Refreshment Rooms? Also I still haven't tried the Italian place across from there, which looks adorable but is probably a bit mediocre?

Deliverance is the sort of food where the people ordering it never have to pay for it (office accounts, mainly, for City people stuck in the office who have to be fed once it's 9pm) and the people who think it's cool would drink at All bar One or similar.

A restaurant called The Begging Bowl probably NAGL for an MA graduation dinner!

The Italian place - Il Giardino - is exactly that. Really cosy and the staff are lovely (and were very happy to let me drop off a birthday cake for a friend and then brought it out with pleasingly minimal fanfare at the end of the meal), the carafe's of wine are fun/cheap but the food is pretty standard pizza/pasta stuff.