Reviews

Polished look: Age & Sons radiates quiet good taste

Age & Sons, Charlotte Court, Ramsgate, Kent

Despite a rumoured sighting of Samuel L Jackson in a Herne Bay barbers, it's fair to say that the Kent coast has some way to go before it rivals the Italian Riviera as a tourist destination.

Inside Reviews

Can Fire & Stone's 'experimental' pizza combinations live up to the glamour of Europe's biggest shopping mall?

Sunday, 1 November 2009

Fire & Stone, 107A Southern Terrace, Westfield, Shepherds Bush, London W12, tel: 0844 371 2550

Dans Le Noir? 30-31 Clerkenwell Green, London EC1

Saturday, 31 October 2009

"It's just the thing for Hallowe'en," grated the Independent Magazine's top brass, in their don't-even-bother-arguing way. "Instead of reviewing a normal restaurant, where people eat a romantic meal with knives and forks in discreet lighting, you'll go to that place where everyone dines in spooky total darkness, you'll think you've gone blind and you'll pour red wine down your front. Shut the door on your way out."

Polpo, 41 Beak Street, London W1F

Sunday, 25 October 2009

When one Italian 'tapas bar' goes under, can it possibly make any sense to open another in the same spot?

Hix, 66-70 Brewer Street, London W1

Saturday, 24 October 2009

OK, let's get it out in the open. I know Mark Hix. You know Mark Hix. He works just a few pages up from here. He lets the magazine team hold their Christmas party in his house. But does that mean I'm not going to review his new Soho restaurant? No it certainly does not. After all, you've arrived at this part of the magazine via Hix's pages, so you, of all people, will want to know what he's up to.

Hix, 66-70 Brewer Street, London W1

Sunday, 18 October 2009

Even the art on the ceiling doesn't detract from the food on the plates at Mark Hix's new Soho restaurant

The Luxe, 109 Commercial Street, London E1

Saturday, 17 October 2009

The denizens of Spitalfields in east London have been waiting a long time for The Luxe. John Torode – the Australian judge on TV's Masterchef, who closes his eyes while shouting at his fellow judge, the cockney hard-man Gregg Wallace – has been promising to open for over a year. But since he's the chap behind Smiths of Smithfield, people have been happy to wait.

Osterley Park caf�, Jersey Road, Isleworth, Middlesex

Sunday, 11 October 2009

All too often, the food on family days out is no picnic. Can the caf� at Osterley Park match its gorgeous grounds?

Andy Campbell @ 23 Romilly Street

Saturday, 10 October 2009

Now this is what Soho is all about. An unmarked doorway on a side street. A dark stairwell leading up to a crepuscular first-floor dining room. Guttering candles casting pools of light in a shadowy room of shiny black and sexy red. Light slanting through Venetian blinds on to crisp white tablecloths. All the scene needs is a woman straddling a chair while unpeeling a stocking and we could be in a Jack Vettriano painting.

A tale of two sittings: A meal at a neighbourhood restaurant with friends is one thing – but what happens when you go back with kids?

Sunday, 4 October 2009

Sushi-Say, 33b Walm Lane, Willesden, London NW2

The Harwood Arms, Walham Grove, London SW6

Saturday, 3 October 2009

I think gastropubs tend to be best when they remember to be pubs as well as gastro, and don't forget they're also supposed to be down-to-earth boozers as well as purveyors of chorizo and purple sprouting broccoli. But really, there are limits. Standing outside the Harwood Arms, you feel your heart sink. The pub is situated at the end of a dispiritingly bricky suburban street. As pubs go, you're surprised this one hasn't gone long ago: it's so tired-looking, so bored, so uninterested in having anyone come through its doors. There's nothing about it that shouts, or even murmurs, "Trendy eating-house!" The colour scheme is mostly a flat matt magenta, over which the dust of years seems to have settled. Can this be the joint recently voted London's best gastropub? Have we come to the wrong address? As for that awful colour ... "If I remember the Farrow & Ball paint swatch," said my date, Madeleine, "this is a darker version of their Dead Salmon ..."

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