Tag: 5*****
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The Alice, Oxford: Proof That Some Restaurants Really Are Special
For those of you who read my restaurant reviews (and, truly, I adore your stamina), you’ll know that I often talk about restaurants trying to be special. The dim lighting, the overpriced cocktails with sprigs of rosemary the size of bonsai trees, the waiter who says “awesome” when you order water; all the theatre of…
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Rudy’s: Proof That Being Good Beats Being Different
Right, so Rudy’s Pizza in Bristol. Another bloody pizza joint. Or a burger place. Those are the only two things that seem to open these days. You can’t move in a British city without tripping over an “artisan” sourdough base or a “dirty” triple-stacked beef thing. And I’m not going to stand here and make…
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Moxy Cologne Airport: The Airport Hotel That Forgot to Be Awful
Right, so here’s the thing: airport hotels should be crap. That is their function. They are not meant to be destinations, they are meant to be purgatory. They should exist in that peculiar hinterland of travel where you’ve left your home but not yet arrived anywhere, and so deserve a night in a building that…
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Aqua Brasserie: The Roast That Rules Bristol
Let’s get this out of the way straight off: Aqua in Bristol is excellent. Not “pretty good for a chain,” not “fine if you’re in the neighbourhood,” but properly, resoundingly excellent. The food, the service, the whole set up. Top notch. And yet, bafflingly, no one in Bristol seems to shout about it. Maybe it’s…
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Blacklock Manchester: Where Cavemen Go to Evolve
There’s something gloriously primeval about a big plate of meat. Stick a group of blokes in a room with dim lighting, throw down a hunk of animal, and watch them gnaw away with the sort of quiet reverence that makes you think maybe civilisation was a mistake. I’ve been called a caveman before — usually…
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Renaissance Shenzhen Bay: A Look into the Future
Shenzhen is the future. Not in the vague, Instagram-filtered sense that one throws around like confetti in European cities, but the proper, actual future. The sort where you step off a plane and feel that everything you thought was cutting-edge back home is suddenly quaint, pedestrian even. And at the heart of this futurism sits…
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W Hong Kong: Reception on the Sixth Floor, Energy Through the Roof
Right, so here we are then, in Hong Kong, a city that is less a place and more a bloody organism. It doesn’t sleep, it doesn’t yawn, it doesn’t even pause to scratch itself. It just goes. Ceaselessly. A thrum, a vibration, a caffeinated whirring of humanity that makes New York look like it’s having…
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The Kensington, Cotham – A Local Worth Falling For (Even If It Let Me Down a Bit)
I love this place. There, I said it. I love this place. The Kensington in Cotham is the sort of pub you rarely find outside London these days — and even in London they’re being squeezed out faster than a pint in Soho on a Friday. It’s the holy grail of neighbourhood spots: a proper…
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Vivat Bacchus, Farringdon – A Lunch Upgrade Worth Logging Back Into Teams For
There’s nothing quite like an impromptu business lunch to lift the spirits and recalibrate your day. One minute you’re weighing up whether to endure another Super Green Falafel from Pret or gamble on that egg mayo baguette that’s been sweating quietly in the chiller since 8 a.m., and the next—you’re in a real restaurant. With…
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Hotel 1898, Barcelona — A Boringly Brilliant Stay
You know when you book a hotel and you’re not entirely sure what you’re getting? That’s how I felt with Hotel 1898 in Barcelona. I’d clicked around their website for a bit, expecting… well, I don’t know what. Something faintly forgettable, perhaps. A boutique business stopover with slightly too much beige? A faded Spanish colonial…
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The Travel Critic 