Restaurant Reviews - g
Galvin at Windows, London
Watching over London town, Galvin at Windows is situated on the 28th floor of the prestigious London Hilton on Park Lane hotel. We enter through the swish, polished-marble interior of the hotel lobby and the lifts whoosh you up to in a matter of seconds to the top floor where Galvin’s is located.
Galvin Bistrot de Luxe, Baker Street
The Galvins have an empire now and you can eat rather more ‘refayned’ versions of their dishes at La Chapelle, and I am sure they are worth the money. But for classic cooking in an environment that makes you want to linger for hours, you can’t beat their original and best restaurant - Bistrot de Luxe.
Galvin La Chapelle, Smithfield
This year has brought some very good meals (Pied a Terre, Chez Bruce, Hibiscus), some average ones (Tom Aikens, Arbutus) and some damn right terrible (Umu). In the ‘very good’ column I can add Galvin at Windows and Bistro de Luxe, so I was very interested in seeing what the brothers had managed to do with their new venture. Would it be a restaurant too far or a City winner?
Game at Trishna and The Harwood Arms
There still may be just a whisper of game left if you’re quick. Two very different establishments this season, with opposing cuisines, have been in on the act of serving the furred and the feathered. Anita Pati gives them both a shot.
GBK Clink Street
For those of you who are familiar with GBK, Clink Street is the chain's 50th outlet and rather different from the norm for a few reasons, the most striking of which is that it offers full restaurant service, rather than ordering and paying at a counter, which is how it works everywhere else.
Gilgamesh
Recession what recession? Those in work are having it large, with ever decreasing mortgage repayments giving them more cash to splash. Maybe that’s why here in Gilgamesh on a Wednesday night the bar is pretty full and the restaurant is too. In the private dining room, a hundred and fifty people are tucking into chef Ian Pengelley’s Pan Asian food and the man himself can be seen in his open kitchen toiling away happily.
Goldfish, Gresham Street
Modern Chinese cuisine and dim sum, it's a curious combination so just how “modern” is the latest offering from the Goldfish family?
Gourmet San
“Hello? Is that the Chinese takeaway? Great, can I have Ox tendon in spicy oil, fried green beans with preserved vegetable and chilli, Sichuan style tofu and seafood, fried pork tendons in spicy salt, a skewered whole quail and the fried lamb with onion and lots of cumin and chilli. What do you mean you’ve never heard of any of that? What kind of Chinese restaurant are you?”
Gow’s, Old Broad Street, London
My first call at Gow’s was a few weeks back for a few bar snacks. Expecting nothing more than a cup of coffee and a packet or two of crisps and nuts, I was more than impressed with the plates of soft quail eggs, crumbly pork pies and heavily filled sandwich platters that arrived in minutes, leaving me with the notion that this place would swiftly become a favourite. I returned not long after with a friend and shared a good value fish platter.
Greens Cornhill
It’s a cliché of course to say that restaurants like Greens offer comfort food for the upper classes. This is a notion based on the idea that the upper classes don’t like ‘fancy’ food or stuff from Johnny Foreigner. They’re supposed to only like food that reminds them of nursery or public school. Well, as it happens, I am an ex-public schoolboy meself doncha know and we were never served oysters or lobster at our place. No doubt things were different at Eton.
Guerilla Burgers, London
Guerrilla Burgers is filling a family-friendly slot and doing it pretty well for the money and with no silly nonsense such as ‘added foie gras’. I liked the place even though I am not a burger afficianado. It deserves to do well and they seem to be doing so already. I guess if you don’t like it you can always burger off back to New York.
