london restaurants

Pidgin just off London Fields was excellent when I went there last year http://www.pidginlondon.com/

Pidgin is indeed brilliant, maybe my current favourite restaurant in London, but I don't think it has a lunch sitting?

Only Friday to Sunday sez the website.

Thanks all, this is giving us lots of good options.

Just had pretty great brunch at the Lacy Nook, at the border between Stoke Newington and Stamford Hill. Purple jacket potatoe with yoghurt, cheese, avocado, tomato and onion, yum. They also did a mean rarebit but that's been discontinued. :(

Any interesting restaurants around Sloane square?

^^^bourgie scab ;)

there's a nice little trattoria called La Bottega on Lower Sloane Street which is p cheap and tasty tho if you want to keep things humble

yeah I know its a tough ask.

La Bottega migth be ok but its open till 8pm most days, might need a place that's open till later than that..

for all the time i've spent in that area i really can't think of many restaurants i've been to. the one place sort of around there that i can recall, cambridge street kitchen, was massively overpriced

I really enjoyed Hunan the one time I went, but it is pricey and only does the 10ish small plates for £65 format for the dinner menu, you've got to set aside the time

I see there is a branch of Saravana Bhavan in Charing Cross Road now. Has anyone been - or gone to any of their other places in London?

I see them all over the world but can’t for the life of me remember whether I have eaten at one.

I went to the one in Southall but only for sweets - I’m glad to be within walking distance of this branch.

I live within walking distance of the Parisian branch. Haven’t gone yet either, too many other south Asian neighbors restos even closer.

I'm going to have to visit. It's not particularly easy to get irl Indian food at reasonable prices and it looks like they've largely kept the menu as-is from the international branches rather than bastardising it for British tastes.

any recommendations for, well, 'somewhere quiet and calm' is the request to drink in the paddington/marylebone area? i would have said the windsor castle but the fuckers shut it down. doesn't need to be a pub, can be a bar or w/e. in fact i might go to the bar at Durrant's hotel. expensive, obv, but there's a fire and comfy armchairs, and it's usually v quiet.

Barley Mow, Dorset St. https://whatpub.com/pubs/WLD/16750/barley-mow-london

Big fan of the Golden Eagle on Marylebone High Street. Small but if you get there at the right time then it's very comfortable and feels suitably festive.

cheers both. good calls. love the golden eagle. clarence, the main barman, is a moody old bugger but by god he can serve a busy bar in seconds.

never actually been in the barley mow but may give it a shot tonight.

does remind me there’s a v good and surprisingly non-marylebone pub in the mews behind mb high street: the king’s head. well kept, irish landlord, good mix of people, and has that mystical improbability, a decent pint of ipa. manages to be both calm and convivial.

seconding the Barley Mow, they do a good pie & mash if you get hungry

ace. and i should have said “a decent pint of *greene king* ipa” a drink usually so revoltingly kept that it barely qualifies as potable.

any recommendations on places near-ish excel london? would also take any rec's for anywhere specifically great on a saturday night thats ~30 min cab ride of the convention center

environs of excel are most dismal place on earth possibly

i kinda had that sense but was hoping

any general recommendations that are open late then?

Laughing Heart on Hackney Road is open til 2 (you’ll want to check how late the kitchen stays open, I think it’s most of that time) and was excellent the time we went.

The Lahore Kebab House just off Commercial Road was fab years ago, haven’t been for ages, open til 1. Needoos and Tayyabs both 11.30 I think, both reliably very good indeed.

i found laughing heart disappointing on two occasions - it, along with plaquemine lock in angel, has been frustrating to me each time it appears in glowing terms on some end of year list of new places. tho the latter is more of a sham tbh - i've started to distrust the london critics quite a bit, they're all happy to be performatively cynical when it's some millionaire easy to hate project, and i suppose have at it, but there's some amount of places when it's someone within their twittersphere or whose parents are deeply involved in the london food scene which are actually crap and just get hyped beyond all sense.

that said i prob still will give laughing heart another go based on your opinion, tim.

i think kiln was prob my favourite (new) restaurant this year in london. best meal was prob at j sheekey or anchor and hope. tho fairly disgracefully i've still not eaten in p franco despite (or because of) it being about two mins from my front door.

Had NYE dinner at Andi's on Stoke Newington Church Street, run by a chef who was formerly in Rip, Rig & Panic! Really loved the food - starter of beef tartare with marmite soldiers was a revelation.

I’ve heard good things about Andi’s.

(She’s Miquita Oliver’s mum too, BTW).

thanks for heads up re plaquemine lock lg, friends were talking about booking just the other day

I eat at Tayyabs every time I come to London (just ate yesterday,, mmmm) and I have yet to try anywhere else in the last 15 years besides Dishoom. Was thinking of maybe giving something on Brick Lane a whirl. I remember going to Shampan a lot a long time ago but am thinking of trying City Spice or the Brasserie. Any suggestions?

City Spice - specifically, anything they specifically identify as Bangladeshi!

Delicious. I got the chicken rezala which was just on the verge of being too spicy (came close to asking for raita) but I just made sure to avoid the green chili peppers.

i always went to cinammon on brick lane, but i've never had a particularly good curry on brick lane. Does anybody have any recommendations for keralan restaurants in newham?

where do all you uncontrollably wealth people eat these days? friend's standing me a within-reason-money-no-object meal (it was a gift to her), but the last time I really splashed out was a while ago, so my list is probably a bit out of date.

i mean i'm strongly tempted by a long, slow, Maltby Street evening. Though the comfort of those places can be wanting sometimes.

Plenty of ways to spend a big pile of money on food in London. What is your preferred type of restaurant and do you want a more extravagant version of the same, or something different?

I will never stop recommending Pidgin, it really is remarkably good (it's generally a long slow pleasure of a meal also). I find set menu things really relaxing. Agree that Maltby Street is great but yes not necessarily a comfortable luxury of an evening.

Blandford's questions are good ones though!

yeah I revisited Pidgin recently, really excellent, and the vegetarian food is just as good as the meat/fish menu (or so my vege dining companion said)

how....would they know?

our last big meal was vanilla black, which was very nice

okay to rephrase, my vegetarian dining companion appeared to enjoy her meal as much as I did and said it was very nice.

lol i'm just teasing

hah sorry, bait risen to!

many xposts to Blandford Forum - i wrote this then forgot to post it.

Well, my friend has now decided to donate it as an auction fundraiser prize to a homeless charity, which is obv *the right answer* (scowls) and also means I can refrain from my 'idk somewhere nice dammit' answer. they are good questions tho.

I'm not sure i have a preferred type of restaurant. I have a soft spot for heavy tablecloths and comfort, especially because it feels quite rare now. Rules is good in that respect tho very expensive and not as good as it should be. Whereas Patio in Shepherd's Bush is not at all expensive and usually very good. Plus free vodka.

I've always liked the noisy bustle of informal trattorias and bistros. This description of a Hungarian bistro in Kosztolányi's novel Skylark always fills me with desire and envy:

The three of them detested restaurants. And although they had hardly visited this one, they could talk about it with sneering condescension. The dishwater soups, the tough gristly meat, the carelessly concocted desserts they served up to poor, unsuspecting bachelors, who had never tasted good home cooking. Oh, for a homemade soup, a homemade stew, or a home-baked pastry!

Somehow they had to overcome the disgust they had artificially cultivated beyond all proportion. On the way to the restaurant they comforted each other, braving themselves for the dubious event. When they stepped inside the King of Hungary they immediately wrinkled their noses and screwed up their eyes. An enormous, clean and friendly dining hall stretched out before them...

In the middle of the impeccably laundered tablecloth stood a bunch of flowers. Beside it were two small silver dishes freshly heaped with salt and paprika, a pepper pot and jars of mustard, vinegar and oil. To one side, on a splendid glass platter with a silver rim, lay apples, peaches and, in little wicker baskets, fresh and crusty rolls, salted croissants and small white loaves sprinkled with poppy seeds. Just then two pastry boys came through the door in bright white caps, carrying a long wooden board packed with a battalion of vanilla slices, whose rich egg fillings shone a gorgeous gold beneath their crumbling red-brown pastry crusts, sprinkled thick with icing sugar. The old man stole a fleeting glance at these delights with a certain vague contempt. He picked up the menu, then handed it to his wife.

"You order. I can't even bring myself to look."

and so it goes on. anyway, at one point he sees an old acquaintance across the room.

Looking up from the cloud of tepid steam that rose from the silver bowl before him and misted up his pince-nez, Weisz and Partner greeted Ákos with an absent-minded nod of the head. He was utterly engrossed in the serious business of eating. He stared wide-eyed at the neatly diced red meat of his goulash soup as he ladled it into a porcelain bowl printed with the curlicued monogram KH. Using the back of his soup spoon, he mashed his perfect egg-shaped potatoes into a smooth puree. He ate quickly and with great relish. The remaining, wonderfully oily liquid, he mopped up with morsels of bread roll pinned to his fork.

So, yes, that sort of thing please. I sometimes think Fischers in Marylebone should cover it, and it is good (v good wines, and I love their breakfast paprikash), but it's not quite what I want. Something more egalitarian and large scale would be preferable. Good hotels come close to the high-ceiling'd tabcloth'd scale i guess.

More on topic - Had a fantastic meal in Koya a couple of weeks ago. Best I've had there. Pickled artichoke was amazing.

Pidgin sounds good.

Looking for a recommendation for Lebanese/Middle Eastern food suitable for a family/large group with one vegetarian 13-year-old in the mix, near Edgware Road - my best friend and her family are in town, and we’re meeting another of her friends who is staying at the London Metropole. I’m after something that isn’t a hole in the wall and isn’t a marble palace for super-rich people. Persian could work too, and near bits of St John’s Wood/Maida Vale are also worth a shout.

Are there any good Cuban food places ilx would recommend in London? Restaurants, bars or perhaps even takeaway/lunch spots. Going to be down for a couple of days and hoping there might be something a bit more interesting and individual than the unappealing chains we have here in Glasgow.

The same for Basque food/pintxos as well actually - any recommendations there? We ended up in Pix a few years ago, which was very good, but maybe there's others worth hunting out?

Just to report back... went to Pix again for pintxos (Soho this time) and it was still good, though I wasn't quite so impressed as a couple of years ago. For Cuban food we tried Cubana on Lower Marsh and were pleasantly surprised by how good the food was. My Cuban partner was happy, especially to get yukka chips, and thought it pretty authentic to her memories. We also went to a wee Caribbean place out Stratford way where we were staying, which was decent. Super friendly staff all round as well.

I had assumed that Cubana would be a fun place to hang out with completely average and inauthentic food so this is excellent information.

I went to Cabana a few times when I worked near Waterloo in the late 90s and I just assumed it wasn't that authentic because it was full of post-work young people downing margaritas! Sounds like I need to go back...