Evening Standard, 4 March
David Sextons visits Barny’s Place, 85 Houndsditch, London EC3
Barny is Barny Stoppard, the 38-year-old second son of Sir Tom Stoppard’s first marriage. Houndsditch was once the site of the moat bordering the wall of the City. The Elizabethan antiquary John Stow observed that it was so called “from that in old time, when the same lay open, much filth (conveyed forth of the City) especially dead dogges were there laid or cast”. Plus ça change, eh? Now Barny’s Place, which opened in January, serves surprisingly high-quality fast food for breakfast and lunch to nearby City workers. Barny used to work in video production. Then he opened a sausage sandwich stall in Broadway Market in 2004 which lasted for a few months before he returned to his career. Temporarily, as it turned out. The sausages beckoned. In 2006, he opened the first Barny’s Place in the form of a kiosk selling takeaways in Broadgate Circus, which is still there.
Barny’s Place - review in full>>
Metro, 3 March
Marina O’Loughlin visits Sake No Hana, 23 St James’s Street, London SW1
With omakase, you enter into a contract. The word, which means, more or less, 'entrusting', is your way of saying to the itamae (sushi chef) that you're prepared to abandon any kind of ownership of your dinner. Which, if you're as much of a control freak as I am, is a terrifying prospect. But by using the magic word, I've had real adventures in two of the world's major sushi capitals: Tokyo and Los Angeles. In Tokyo, you'll be deposited in some strange Ginza basement with a scary-looking chef who, while not flashing his blades like a ninja cartoon, might be hectoring underlings so rabidly he makes Big Sweary look like Christopher Biggins. Here, it's all about the flawlessness of the fish (ask for soy or wasabi – or a California roll – at your peril), the delicacy of the knifework and the pearly perfection of the ever-so-slightly warm rice.
Sake No Hana – review in full>>
Time Out, 5 March
Guy Dimond visits The Queen Adelaide, London
The Queen Adelaide is one of those swaggeringly confident Victorians you’ll find in the London suburbs, a Grade II-listed pub on a former stagecoach route. It would have been the place for society nobs to fortify themselves with a roast and glass of porter on the way out to their country estates in the nineteenth century, but in recent decades the area’s fortunes have changed. The tone of the locale isn’t helped on Saturday evenings by its proximity to QPR’s ground. Contemporary footpads and brigands might be encountered – the kind of people whose only dog pedigree certificate reads ‘Break in – make my day’. And the only horses you might see are the racing gee-gees on a TV screen. Shepherd’s Bush, in other words, is ripe for gentrification.
The Queen Adelaide – review in full>>
By Janet Harmer
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