london restaurants

when you asked for small noodle soup it was as big as yr head (if yr head was liquid and in a bowl); i never dared ask for large noodle soup, in case the seas ran dry and it was my greedy fault

As the WCDS is starting soon I will be able to give more info, but Ethiopian Merkato on Caledonian Road is good, Crouch End (wherever the fuck that is) is full of top restaurants but latest discover of BYO curry house just off Marchomont Street in central London has had me going back 4 times in 2 weeks.

The Gate in Hammersmith is better than the one next to my house. Rasa in Stoke Newington is better than the one near Oxford Circus. But the best vegetarian restaurant in London is Manna, on Erskine Road, near Primrose Hill. I love this place (it equals The Gate for tastiness of food, and has a much better atmosphere).

Kulu Kulu sushi in Brewer Street.

Mandola in Westbourne Grove.

Churchill Arms pub thai in Kensington.

but then im with some other people later in the week and we need another recommendation.

They recommend the place you mention sarah

sushi-say is like 15mins walk from my house...

Sarah, sushi-say is fantastic, and the chef thre is very very cool.

I've heard far too many stories about Pollo ever to go back there, which is a shame as I used to like it.

Fresh off the press: Etta's Seafood Kitchen in Brixton Market is sooooo good

(I got the Jamaican brown stew fish and it absolutely owned. Incredibly friendly in there too and mains for well under 20 quid if you like)

Yeah, a lot of mains from very average places that were £18/20 or so a few years ago/pre-Covid are now £30+! With most Chinese/ESEA places, the mains are supposed to be shared family-style, which mitigates the higher price slightly, but £12 for banh mi or one of those takeaway brown cardboard bowls of bùn vermicelli with not enough topping or sauce is kind of a pisstake.

Yellow Bittern seems to be very self-consciously evoking a rationing-era 1950s aesthetic I’d call Lucian Freud Eats Pie. But working aristos love that shit.

One place I do miss loads that did this kind of thing well is Great Queen Street, home of the £45 lamb shoulder for two (or more).

The shared plates criticism feels more omnipresent and solidified than restaurants that do shared plates by now, feel like I've been reading for about a decade. Sure it's based on a kind of truth but most of the bigger popular restaurants now and a lot of the smaller ones are bistros. That seems to be the big trend again.

And there were always plenty of places that did starter and main in that fashion even whenever the height of shared plates was.

Some things gain traction as opinions due to how easy they are to understand rather than actual deeper truth.

The Yellow Bittern is reviewed today in the Guardian... Leaves you muttering about school dinners

Can I just say that with a one year old who really likes to eat, shared plates are the business. He’s basically eating off our plates anyway and shared plates really work.

As for these cally road aristos, they just make me feel like I left London a long time ago. There’s a cognitive dissonance about a 40 quid pie on a street with a prison that I associate with the first time I ate Ethiopian food (and the swimming pool for that matter). More than that though, dictating how people eat your food and only doing lunchtime service seems like something you have to earn your stripes to do. It’s a bit I’m sure but they don’t seem like they are overly concerned with making this restaurant pay which is the biggest affront to everyone grafting in hospo.

Anyway you can all guess which one of them I went to school with. (Hint - it’s the poshest one)

lmao

they don’t seem like they are overly concerned with making this restaurant pay which is the biggest affront to everyone grafting in hospo

yep, defo feels very forced.

There are so many great restaurants at the bottom of the Cally Road - Hawker’s Kitchen, Supawan Thai, the plov place which is (ISTR) Azeri, the Ethiopians, Tamil Prince on the Barnsbury side etc etc, where two people can eat well for the price of that Guinea fowl pie.

Those would all still be recognisably London for you, Ed. I take it your classmate (for the 6th form) was Snowdon’s daughter?

Yellow Bittern definitely nailing the PR game. I doubt I'll ever go but I enjoyed the Vittles writeup (as I usually do).

When I do go to hyped places it's usually 5 years after everyone else. Finally made it to Mangal 2 the other week. Very enjoyable, would go back, even if the meal started stronger than it finished. Highlights were the deeply comforting pides. At the end we went across the road for a straightahead kunefe.

Supawan or the Tamil Prince are not much cheaper than 20 quid a main course which is what the lie works out, if any cheaper at all. Every main at Supawan is about 19 quid without rice so basically the same or more expensive.

Tamil Prince is more like a small plates model, heaven forbid.

Had a great fried mussel sandwich at Midyeci today.

Ads for there keep appearing in my feed on Instagram, no idea why. Maybe I should give in.

The American diner vibe is kind of a random choice but who knows, maybe there's dozens of places looking like that in Istanbul.

I never even knew fried fish like that was a thing in Turkey but I guess we only see certain types of food as the dominant or popular imports.

Ed. I take it your classmate (for the 6th form) was Snowdon’s daughter?

― guillotine vogue (suzy), Monday, November 18, 2024 1:15 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It was one of those eton avenue crammers for the nice but dim and to undiverge the divergent - so up to the age of 12 or so.

Went to Nobel Rot this last week and for the first time it... really wasn't very good. service was really friendly but really bad (things arriving in wrong order, waiting ages for a drink, wrongly described dishes) which is a difficult combination, food was mainly *ok* but in one case indifferent to the point of being like school dinners. wines still good and i still love the lamb's conduit dining room, and it was *really* busy. but still. made me wonder if they'd over-reached with their additional openings. hoping it's just a blip.

OMA last night was fantastic however. Inside dining room had been all booked up, so we were on the external terrace, which was preferable tbh. You're high up under the general structure of Borough market, you have the trains clattering away on the high line above you over to one side, the acoustics and the general design mean it felt really lively and fun. the food was amazing – salt cod with labneh and the scallop in chilli oil butter were highlights, but it was consistently of a really high standard, wines also, and was just a really enjoyable, relaxed evening. my boring line that restaurants should *restore* you as per the name rather than just refuelling was delivered exactly.

that's interesting - the first one or two times i went i thought it was good but more for the wine, and my cousin who i eat out with a lot was insistent i'd been a bit unlucky or something, though obv you'd want it to be consistently great. the last three times i've been i've found it as good as anywhere really, very impressed. only ever done lamb's conduit one.

must give oma a go.

yeah, noble rot has been a stalwart standby - my kind of place, so i'd be disappointed if it *has* lost a step. it's earned enough credit though for me to be back next year.

Gah. Sorry to hear that Nobel Rot wasn't very good, Fizzles. Certain I've recommended upthread.

Picked out this thread tonight with a thought of "Right, I've got two days coming up in London - involving Tindersticks at the Royal Albert Hall and a stay in a hotel on Talgarth Road, Hammersmith ... and probably a lunch on one of the days at Nobel Rot on Lamb's Conduit ... any other recommendations involving food/win?"

i would prob still trust noble rot to deliver tbh, might have just been an off night above. lunch special is v good value for the quality tho always the danger of the amazing wine list.

have you been to river cafe? given you're in hammersmith. not been in ages but it was good when i went and is an institution.

nearer the royal albert hall, my cousin was telling my ognisko, a sort of high-end polish restaurant is really good, tho not been myself. the menu looks great.

me*

It is good but there’s something more satisfying about Daquise.

Thanks LG/Suzy. Currently sat with Hoxton Mini Press' "Wine London" and "London Delis", trying to plot a course across two days.

Any recommendations near-ish Marylebone (in a leisurely lunch and not too much of rush to the station, sort of way)?

Half pondering here -

https://www.linastores.co.uk/locations/marylebone-lane

Or maybe a cheese platter and a bottle of wine here -

https://lafromagerie.co.uk/ (though they don't seem to indicate what's vegetarian)?

both are good

lina's is reliably good for a plate of pasta. it's a bright, cheerful dining room. probably the best from the vegetarian angle?

la fromagerie is really great if you want a glass of wine and a snack - i find i break out into cheese sweats if i go overboard on the platter though. probably not *quite* so leisurely either. (though my 'leisurely lunch' tends to be three hours, so we may have different metrics here.

there's a st john's near lina's, but i'm really not sure how much they accommodate vegetarians (it's p meat focused as you may know).

there's also fischer's - great dining room, recreating a hungarian bistro feel. central european theme so again, fish and meat predominate, but i think the vegetarian options are pretty good. it's lost its edge a mite imo, but for 'leisurely' is probably one of the better options. i suspect it will be *busy* though.

I’d recommend Emilia’s Crafted Pasta over Lina Stores. Kima is my favourite in Marylebone but it’s a) mostly fish and b) very expensive. Normah’s on Queensway is brilliant but probably half an hour walk from the station.

St John usually has the one vegetarian main option which is two vegetables and goat curd. Usually only the one starter too, the kohlrabi is lovely if that's on.

never been to emilia's - that sounds good. lina's is kinda *fine* - never really makes my socks go up and down, but is good for a light lunch if you're in town.

Thanks again. Special thanks to Fizzles for introducing me to the phrase "makes my socks go up and down". Very tempted by Fischer's!

Fischer's looks more veg friendly than a lot of places I went to in Vienna. A courgette Schnitzel...

Went to Fischer and took my mother to lunch. Solid recommend.

Apparently Karl Ove Knausgaard eats there a lot. Hope you met him.

No, but now I know I might go there more often now.

Post the selfie here :)

Ah, I never made it there though did do La Fromagerie (who could accommodate vegetarianism).

Also went back to Noble Rot (Did the cheap menu and it did feel slightly "Here are some things we happen to be cooking for other people" in retrospect) - really love the Lamb's Conduit space, though.

There was a table buying lots of wine and going "full menu" and I clocked that they were ignoring the staff almost totally, aside from placing their orders ... as if they'd been taught it was bad etiquette to say "Thanks!" for anything.

the first time i did the lunch menu, at lc, i thought it was brilliant, all three courses. second time, at the soho one, i thought it was still very good but a bit more sparse and less interesting.

Yeah, similar experience.

Went to Masigo (Korean) in Chapel Market on a whim without knowing anything about it and it was pretty good tbh? Shared a portion of fried chicken (ganjang) & bulgogi with my companion and the chicken was the standout by far, think I would go back with more people next time cos the beef bbq the table across had smelled incredible. The portions were very generous, the chicken itself was probably more than sufficient for just two people but it was so so so good.

Good place to take 6 or 7 work colleagues in town from various European countries near Euston / Kings X? They all work in public service media so er there are limits to what can be expensed

idk what the vibe is but if they eat meat, i went to a place called charcoal champ at the weekend, having had it on my list for a good while. chinese bbq with loads of skewers of various nature. not a fancy place but very good and good value.

Went to brigadiers near cannon st last weekend for reasons I won’t go into. We ordered plenty. I liked it, a good bit, but I was also left with the feeling that maybe over a certain price point the diminishing returns for stuff like chicken tikka is particularly in evidence? Which is to say, I have had many orders of chicken tikka in my lifetime but none where I actually cut the chicken up and was trying to establish if it was actually burnt because of how it tasted.

Lamb though, faultless, and had an excellent dessert there. Pretty nice, wouldn’t go there a second time.

I cook a lot of curries at home, mainly bhunas with either beef or lamb. I've given up with chicken because I can never get it right and am neurotic about undercooking it. But with lamb I can always achieve what I consider better than takeaway/lol maybe even mediocre restaurant standard home cooking. It is much harder to fuck up with lamb imo.

Charcoal Champ is on York Way iirc, good shout.

Hoppers for Sri Lankan is great for vegetarians and vegans; larger groups can book Dishoom, Tamil Prince or German Gymnasium as well (if the weather is good that’s a lovely place). The Standard always impresses out of towners and you can do afters on the roof.

is the Standard the hotel that has the weird exterior elevator??

oh i see it is. likely a bit expensive for this crew

It is! And used to be Camden Town Hall. Social housing unit was on the fourth floor of that building.

It’s insane how expensive it is to eat out now.