Fantastic Feasts: Dinner by Heston

Dinner by Heston

Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, 66 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7LA

This was the second of our visits to Heston Blumenthal's London outpost (the first was 2 years ago).  In the time since our last visit it has rapidly picked up a Michelin Star as well as places on some pretty impressive lists. Rather than take full control over the venture himself, Heston has delegated a significant amount of control to Dinner executive chef is Ashley Palmer Watts, a Fat Duck alumnus who is beginning to gain a name for himself in the food festival circuit (he did a demonstration at the Taste Lab, for example).

Brown Bread Ice Cream

Flat Iron

Flat Iron

17 Beak st, Soho

UPDATE:  Flat Iron is back with a vengeance now in Soho. Months on from their pop-up at the Owl & pussycat back  in August (read below) Flat Iron now have their own permanent set up, and what's more prices have remained the same. Still unbeatable value, and things have got better these chips are probably some of the best I've had in London. It's not a massive place, with under 30 seats, so expect a queue at peak times. 

As well as the dinning area there is a cocktail area downstairs, so even if you have to wait, it won't be out in the cold. Be sure to try their 'off-menu' doughnuts which were a treat for us for one of my friends birthdays, an unexpected but lovely suprise, on this point the FOH are brilliant. I can see me going here time and time again. It's hard to get bored of steak and chips especially this good and this cheap.

Hellfire halloween at Ben's Canteen with Noshable

Halloween Dinner party - Ben's Canteen - A Noshable Event

140 St. John's Hill, Clapham

For this Halloween, Noshable, known for his previous american themed events, had organised a dinner party with the promise of suicide wings, Cuban Ropa Vieja and Pumpkin Pie. It was time for a hellish night, and with Judas is scary hot (iscariot) sauce supplied from Ribman made from naga chillis, one of the hottest on the planet, things were definitely due to heat up. 

This 'Gull makes me clam up

Bonnie Gull @Bonnie Gull
21A Foley Street

Yet another pop-up to go permanent, this time in the guise of Bonnie Gull, who previously were seen as the Seafood Shack in hackney, and after a couple of projects they are now in this set up in Fitzrovia. All their seafood is British, and responsibly sourced. It will change every day depending on what's fresh, I suppose we'll wait and see if some things will be more regular than others. Reasonably priced, great seafood restaurants are hard to come by in London, but this place certainly fits the bill. 

You make me wanna breakout

Burger Breakout @ The Old Crown 

33  New Oxford Street, WC1A 1BH

3 months after his successful Pop-up at Chad's Place (see here), Dave Ahern is back with a permanent, and even more adventurous, venture in the heart of London, a stone's throw from the British Museum. The foundation of the menu is built on those burgers at the pop up, so the whiskey beast, swine time, the Bambi Bought it, and the baa-baa baby. In addition to these are the OC burger (with Devon Long Horn patty), the camilla burger (chicken burger), and the 'I don't need your bull' veggie option. Each comes with it's own bespoke sauce befitting it's own meat. The choices don't stop there though with steak, chicken wings (10 different sauces!),... each dish has it's own unique twist, with undoubtably a lot of labour (and love) required to go into each of them

Honestly, what you know about burgers internet?

Honest burger (@honestburgers)
4a Mead Street,

Another burger restaurant has ventured into the murky depths of central London. Honest burger have expanded their successful Brixton home to Mead St. just off Dean Street, right near to Burger & Lobster.
With MeatLiquor / Market, B&L, Tommi's burger joint, Slider Bar, not to mention those mini burgers at Opera Tavern, and a new Byron Burger popping up seemingly every month, all within walking distance; is the demand for burgers going to be saturated soon? It sure doesn't seem that way. Honest, continue the trend of a minimal menu with a choice of chicken, beef or vegetable fritter (has anyone actually tried this, surely that smell of burgers on the grill is enough to turn anyone), and the special. 

See that McDonald's over there son...don't let me see you ever go in there

Burger & Lobster - No Alarms and No Surprises

Burger & Lobster (@londonlobster)
36 Dean Street, London, W1D 4PS

Well, you couldn't accuse this one of false advertising. Featuring a minimalistic menu consisting simply of burger and lobster (either whole or as a roll), the Dean Street branch is the second of the two B&L restaurants opened by the team behind the eponymous Goodman in Mayfair. Goodman is famous for boasting some of the best steaks and burgers here, but we were particularly intrigued here by the prospect of £20 lobster.

Bubbledogs - Blogging and dogging

Bubbledogs& @bubbledogsuk

40 Charlotte Street

Bubbledogs is the new venture by James Knappett, who has previously held stints at Noma and the Ledbury. With that kind of pedigree, this was always going to be somewhere that needed checking out. Together with his wife Sandia Chang (of Roganic fame), the menu features a combination of hot dogs and grower champagne. This seems a bit of a strange combination initially, but the place itself inside is a kind of classy, upmarket (although not necessarily in terms of prices) diner with bar seating and tongue-in-cheek illustrations of sausage dogs drinking champagne.

Santoré - Passion for pizza

Exmouth Market is a gem of a street with great independent restaurants like Caravan, Moro, and Santoré, and places to drink with Exmouth Arms and Cafe Kick. For my Birthday, I thought Santoré would be perfect, amazing pizza that can be ordered by the metre, so is great to share with a large group. I've been here before and the standard of their pizza is spot on, nearly comparable that I had on a recent work trip to Trieste, Italy. 

Slider bar - (Un)lucky Chip

SliderBar
Player Bar, 8 Broadwick St, W1F 8HN

For ages we had been looking forward to the opening of Slider Bar, the new venture of LuckyChip in Soho, to complement their Hackney residence at the Sebright Arms. Their opening seemed to be constantly put back and back, checking out their twitter feed they seemed to be beseeched with bad luck holding back their opening. But finally today was the day, announced only the day before on Twitter. With the Lucky Chip burgers consistently touted as one of the best burgers in London, I didn't want to miss out on this.

The Slider bar is on Broadwick St, just off Wardour Street, it is very discreet with the World's smallest sign, so keep your eyes peeled. We got there half an hour after opening, and managed to get a table for the 4 of us. The set up is quite strange downstairs half bar, half restaurant with the seats all bunched together round the perimeter. There couldn't have been more than 50 people seated.

Tonkotsu - Another mean eat on Dean Street

Tonkotsu

63 Dean Street, London, W1D 4QG

Today I'm again reviewing a new Dean/Frith Street restaurant. I promise that there'll be some geographical variation in the future! Tonkotsu is a new Japanese restaurant, with a familiar concept of being a ramen bar with a sort of informal cafe atmosphere. However, there are a couple of factors that do set it apart. The first thing you notice are the big bubbling vats of stock preparing the broth for the next day's ramen. A very deliberate move to show people walking past where the food is coming from, breaking down the barrier between the dining room and the kitchen. This is supplemented by information on the menu as to the origin of the ingredients and the preparation of the meats. We're certainly moving towards the age where people are becoming very mindful of sourcing, and this can only be a good thing.

Ceviche - Pisco Fever

Ceviche
17 Frith Street, W1D 4RG

Spearheading the new wave of Peruvian food in Central London, Ceviche has taken up its spot in the newly invigorated (some would say gentrified) Dean and Frith Street in Soho. Every week there seems to be a new batch of mid-range venues being added as opposed to the traditionally pricier restaurants that have opened in the past 5 years. Always one of the most open-minded of areas in London, it's good to see some interesting new cuisines appearing in this dynamic quarter.

Dabbous - ''Congratulations, you've won the golden ticket!''

Dabbous
39 Whitfield Street, W1T 2SF

I've never heard that reply to a restaurant reservation before. But then, Dabbous is no ordinary restaurant. With a striking industrial interior housed in a former internet cafe (R.I.P. Cyberia!), Dabbous doesn't immediately strike you as the site of one of the most sought after reservations (April 2013 as of this post) in London. This may partially be down to the fact that there' only about 14 tables, which I would imagine would allow for something like 30 covers per night. Accordingly, the speed of service on the night was very impressive for food of that quality. Also, even though the food is easily Michelin star standard (it will undoubtably win one very soon), prices are very reasonable. £54 for the tasting menu (extra £25 for wine, £6 for a cheese platter), with mains running at about £15 makes for excellent value, I think.

Shimogamo - ''Can I have more Urchins please?''

Shimogamo

108 Parkway, NW1 7AN

A new shrine has opened to Japanese food in Camden. It's located on Parkway, which is fast becoming a popular spot for new restaurants in the area. The dining room is small - there's only about 5-6 tables, but it allows for a cosy atmosphere with very attentive service.

London's Best Ice Creams

Summer's here! Well, at least until the end of the week... In celebration, here are our favourite ice creams in central London:

Burger breakout

This was a long awaited day, not just for the Burger Breakout @ 6 St Chad's Place, but for British summer to finally make it's appearance. Burger Breakout is a pop-up from a collaboration between Dave Ahern (of  The Ship, Wandsworth,The Alex and Ben's canteen) and Cornish Grill (who also do their own monthly pop-ups) for their best Cornish produce. With the burger 'scene' in London hitting a high this was great timing to get in on the act and they couldn't have asked for a nicer day (although probably not to be slaving away in the kitchen!)

The (food) revolution is here

While this recession continues to linger on, people are becoming more and more 'value for money' conscious. Whether it be at home or out, We don't want to be paying over the odds for processed, bland, nutritious-less food. Often called 'guilty pleasures'...well you should be guilty because there is A LOT better out there. Because of this there has been a rise in quality street food, and with twitter great places can be known by 'word of mouth' very fast, very far, very quickly (See: Portland, Oregon). Without the need for pointless things like knives and forks, or napkins these gourmet take-aways are becoming increasingly popular. These enterprises 'out of a truck' has led to two great successes of the 'MeatWagon' (then #MeatEasy, followed by MeatLiquor/Market) and Pitt Cue Co branching out into their own fixed residence...minus the wheels!

Food over London - cubed!

Warning: This post may contain an extreme amount of superlatives (it is justified)

Last Friday lunchtime, Shahzad and myself had a culinary experience like no other to dine at the Electrolux Cube for a 5 course meal with chef Daniel Clifford of Midsummer House, who had just won 'Great British Menu'. 

Burger Monday @ Joe Allen's

For quite a while now, I've become far to used to opening up my email to find a new Burger Monday event only to be too late and big SOLD OUT signs on the subsequent links. Thankfully patience (and luck) is a virtue and managed to book myself in for the BurgerMonday at Joe Allen's

FD OUT - MEAT liquor

In the words of Harley Morenstein 'A d-d-dripping that meat saWce!!'. Only way to sum up a messy burger, never been as thankful that the table had a whole kitchen roll and not tissues.

Meat Liquor has to be the ultimate 'guilty pleasure' food, combined with an seemingly endless list of cocktails, all served in jam jars (minus the jam), this probably wasn't a good idea for a work lunch.

I've previously been to the #Meateasy pop up when it was at New Cross, so already new how good the burgers were, although after waiting 2 hours for mine, I practically inhaled it. Now I wanted a bit more time to appreciate it!

Meat liquor is not too far off the main Oxford street tourist track, but enough so it's only gonna be visited by those in the know, even more so with the whited out glass at the front and red sign behind wood panels

Luckily, we managed to get in without too long a wait. I've been past since and the queue has been all along the side. Inside is very grungy lit with red spotlights (hence from now on all my pics are red tinted!) and some very different graffiti and murals. It has to be seen to be appreciated.

I ordered the Dead Hippie with fries and onion rings. The dead hippie is 2 patties cooked to perfection, amazingly succulent and indulgent beyond most other places you'll find in London. The gherkin adds that crunchy texture that brings it all together for that eyes rolling in the back of your head moment. As for the fries, was a little bit disappointed with far too much salt, but the onion rings are another little delight with huge onion rings wrapped in delicate batter.

This is one place that you have to go, and hopefully you'll never go to McDs for a burger again, not that you would of course ;)