Chishuru, Brixton
Straight Up London
by Sam Bowman
3y ago
Chishuru is a West African restaurant in Brixton Village market, following on from a supper club run by head chef Adejoké Bakare, and located thanks to her winning a competition that has given her a unit for six months. It is one of the most enjoyable restaurants I have been to in this difficult year – the food is homely and comforting, with unusual and surprising flavour combinations, and it comes with big portions at a reasonable price. We ordered all four starters on the menu. The Ekuru (£6) was like a slice of deeply savoury cornbread, apparently made from beans, topped with pumpkin seed ..read more
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Two Lights, Shoreditch
Straight Up London
by Sam Bowman
3y ago
“Modern British” food is supposed to be the fusion of traditional British ingredients and dishes with new flavours and ways of cooking. Well, maybe. For me, it’s more of an “I know it when I see it” thing. The “modern American” done by Shoreditch’s Two Lights, allegedly, is harder to place. Pickles, fried chicken, yes – but smoked pigeon or cod and beans? I’m not so sure. Theming aside, the menu is glorious: pretty much every dish sounds interesting and delicious, and it’s hard to pick just two from each category. We started with superb negronis, with a lingering, enjoyably medicinal flavour ..read more
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Review: The Hero of Maida, Maida Vale
Straight Up London
by Ben Southwood
3y ago
There is a great pleasure in walking to and from a restaurant. I moved house recently and whereas Black Axe Mangal was the closest restaurant to my house before, the Hero of Maida is now just two or three minutes’ stroll from my front door. The Hero of Maida is a gastropub – one of those rare things that Britain does well, both on its own terms and relative to the world. When people visit London I will often recommend them a diet composed at least half of gastropub meals. This is especially true now that so many gastropub restaurants are self-consciously digging out the best of what can be fo ..read more
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Review: The Begging Bowl, Peckham
Straight Up London
by Sam Bowman
3y ago
The Begging Bowl was one of the first really high-quality Thai restaurants in London, since joined by places like Som Saa, Kiln and The Smoking Goat, which have brought some of the flavours of Thailand’s north alongside the curries and bright, fresh salads most of us are more familiar with. These northern flavours often centre on pla ra, a fermented fish sauce that can have an off-putting rotten smell, but makes up for it with a richly savoury taste that can stand up to the other flavours that usually dominate Thai cooking. After a major renovation last year, the Begging Bowl is bright and air ..read more
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Review: Orange Buffalo, Tooting
Straight Up London
by Sam Bowman
3y ago
For some reason, London’s restaurants find it extremely difficult to do good buffalo wings. No matter how good somewhere is in other respects, their wings will likely be slimy, soft and coated in some sweet, sickly, tomato-based sauce. I have no idea why this is. Buffalo wings in America, even at chain restaurants and dive bars, are usually pretty good. They’re easy to do at home, if you have a deep fat frier or don’t mind improvising with a cast iron pot. All you want is for them to be crispy (this is essential), hopefully somewhat meaty inside, and coated in a simple sauce of Frank’s (or, ev ..read more
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Review: Four Legs @ The Compton Arms, Islington
Straight Up London
by Ben Southwood
3y ago
I used to live right by the Compton Arms, but in 33 months I never once went there. And yet, in the three weeks since I moved flat, I’ve been there four times. One reason is that the once-crusty regulars pub has been taken over by hipster millennials, and revamped. In: morello cherry goses, revolving IPAs on tap, and a fridge of Belgian sours. Out: your reassuring range of standard pub lagers. Apparently, this caused a revolt among the pub’s oldest and most loyal supporters – and Fosters has returned to the tap lineup – except now the edited custom Fosters label reads ‘Compromise’. Another rea ..read more
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Review: Beer + Burger Store, Haggerston
Straight Up London
by Ben Southwood
3y ago
To get the first half of the review out of the way immediately: Beer + Burger Store is an excellent beer store. They serve a wide range of beers I’d like to drink, from milkshake IPAs to kettle sours, to spontaneous fermentations; and a wide range I’m less interested in but appreciate the existence of. Many of the bottles and tins are expensive, but my willingness to pay for novel beer is almost unlimited and my depth of experiences buying online tell me that this isn’t driven by B+B’s mark-up. But this is a restaurant review website, and while the quality of drinks will often tilt the scale i ..read more
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Review: The Laughing Heart, Hackney
Straight Up London
by Sam Bowman
3y ago
I will probably never really appreciate wine the same way some other people do. There are now some excellent resources, like Josh’s Wine List, for people who want to be able to differentiate between different types of wine and figure out what they like, without spending a fortune. But I can never really detect much of a difference between a wine that costs £7 a bottle in a shop and a wine that costs £30, and I’d much rather try, say, an interesting sour beer anyway. Because of this, The Laughing Heart on Hackney Road was never going to be as big a hit with me as it is with many people, partic ..read more
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Review: The Black Horse, Norbiton
Straight Up London
by Ben Southwood
3y ago
Restaurant quality is pretty concentrated in a few places. If someone asks me where they ought to eat tonight in Soho or Shoreditch I have to ask them if they have any further restrictions to make it easier for me. If someone asks me where to eat in Kingston I’ve had a harder time, despite growing up there. Part of this is my theory about expensive areas vs cheap areas: expensive areas tend to have nicer shops and pubs; cheaper areas tend to have better restaurants and bars. Perhaps well-heeled denizens of Hampstead or Greenwich prefer to entertain. In any case, given that I harbour a fondne ..read more
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Review: Monograph Supper Club, Islington
Straight Up London
by Ben Southwood
3y ago
I hummed and hawed about writing this review because like almost everyone, I don’t like to attack the little guy. It’s all well and good to slate a high end hip new opening in Mayfair, or an overpriced chain, but if restaurants are mostly small businesses, supper clubs are uniformly microbusinesses. Slagging them off doesn’t feel good. But I asked myself “would I be happy if a single person went to Monograph because I was trying to be nice?” And the answer was no. You must not let Monograph take your money for their appallingly unbalanced quality-to-price-ratio supper club – please take my adv ..read more
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