Restaurant Reviews - p
Park Terrace & Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington
The prospect of dinner as a resident at a five star hotel restaurant is an occasion to anticipate. Unquestionably there is a danger of letting the plush surroundings cloud your judgement. However, if you are able to resist being influenced by the grandeur and keep your eye on the ball, then every so often you deduce that perhaps the hotel is not fully committed to fine dining.
Petersham Nurseries
Not many restaurants are housed in a greenhouse, but then not many restaurants are like Petersham Nurseries. Originally the teahouse to the charmingly ramshackle garden centre located just a few steps away from the Thames, it has grown under Skye Gyngell’s inspirational cooking to become a real dining destination. Although the desire for alliteration obscures the fact that, to be accurate, it is only open at lunchtimes except on very special occasions.
Petrus, Kinnerton Street, Knightsbridge
Gordon Ramsay’s latest opening comes in the shape of the re-vamped and re-located Petrus restaurant. The new location is so discreet that you could miss it, which in fact exactly what happened but I found it eventually. The staff at Petrus are very friendly; the food is really very good and even better than that is the value you get with the unbeatable set lunch menu is almost unbelievable.
Pho, Great Titchfield Street, London
Tucked away behind Oxford Circus, we brave the horrendous downpour of heavy rain on a grim Saturday afternoon to visit Pho, serving Vietnamese ‘street food’. The menu here is simple and a few of the really interesting sounding dishes are only available in the evening, which is a bit of a drag.
PINCHITO Tapas, Bayley Street, London
Pinchito tapas is a vibrant and fun place to go for a meal, the style of eating is informal so it works well for both lunch and dinner or for sharing a variety of nibbles with friends over a few drinks. We certainly enjoyed the experience.
Piya Piya
Having attended a reception at Piya Piya and tasted some very good nibbles that were being handed around, we decided to go back there for a meal so that we could sample the selection from the full menu, with an interesting array of dishes, Piya Piya has a lot to offer.
Polpo, Soho
I like Polpo a lot better now it’s got over the initial trendy phase and settled down to simply feeding people. This is the sort of place that only Soho can support, a postcode where dodgy expenses are still signed off and the locals more mature and less fickle than out East. You need eight arms to tackle all the dishes as they pile onto your small table though.
Prism
They say that as you get older, policemen start to look younger. Well that applies to waiters too. The fresh faced kid serving us bread in Prism seems so youthful I’m tempted to ask why he isn’t back home studying for his mock GCSE’s next week.
Profile, Soho, London
Such is my sheltered life I didn’t know about Profile’s status as an iconic Gay club/bar/diner. I just thought the waiters were a trifle camp, but that’s like noticing air stewards are a bit fey. Picking up on the ‘vibe’ we tried to look like two butch blokes confident in their sexuality who just happened to fancy a burger and had popped into the nearest place.
