Evening Standard, 3 October
Fay Maschler at Great Queen Street

A new kind of restaurant has emerged as a response to the sad fact that for most people cooking has become a vicarious activity. Instead of preparing a meal, we watch poor "celebrity" saps - given a sharp knife they seem not to know which way is up - being bullied into doing it on TV. Recently the subject of one benighted programme was a countrywide search for the most incompetent cooks who could then be tormented in a good-cop/bad-cop duffingup into turning out something arguably palatable.
Great Queen Street – Evening Standard review in full >>

Metro, 3 October
Marina O’Loughlin visits All Star Lanes second site

The last time I was in a bowling alley was in Margate. The vast, underpopulated space was painted an evocative shade of bad-teeth brown; it smelled of damp, fag ash and despair. The idea of inserting my tootsies into one of the disturbingly squidgy bowling shoes filled me with panic and a touch of the dry heaves.

Bloomberg, 28 September
Richard Vines at Angelus

It's a rare restaurant in London where most of the waiters are French. Angelus is uncompromisingly Gallic - from the decor, through the staff to the cuisine - and it's a treat to enjoy such a pure Parisian experience.
Angelus - Bloomberg review in full >>

Time Out, 26 September
Guy Dimond at The Only Running Footman

There's something gracious and reassuring about Mayfair pubs. Freed from the constraints of having to screen satellite sport and stage all-night happy hours, the best of them them still retain an old-world charm. The Only Running Footman is one such pub par excellence, and already looks as if it's been there forever, and in a way it has - but it's just reopened after a huge refurb.
The Only Running Footman - Time Out review in full >>