Restaurant Spy - Article

Nominations open for the Best Burger in London 2008

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:26:01 +0000

Since Sticky Fingers won the last "Best Burger in London" award from Spy, we have been inundated with requests for when the award will be announced again.

Of course since then, many "fancy" burger chains have opened up, as do other smaller establishments who really pack it all into a bun, and, of course the occasional pub or cafe who quietly champion their own round of meat.

Sooo... this is where you, the reader comes in. Please add a comment to this story by clicking on the "add new comment" tab at the bottom of this piece. Tell us of a place where you reckon our esteemed panel should head for. Thank You!

Come Dine With Me

Tue, 13 May 2008 09:19:36 +0000

Do you love dinner parties?

Are you a great cook?

The hugely successful Channel 4 show Come Dine With Me is returning for a new, prime-time series. We’re looking for people over 18 years of age in the LUTON & BEDFORDSHIRE, and ABERDEEN areas with a passion for cooking who want to demonstrate their skills.

Over four days, four strangers, from all walks of life, take turns to host the perfect dinner party for each other. At the end of the week the most impressive host wins a £1,000 cash prize.

The Spring Hill, 312a Spring Hill, Warstones Rd, Penn, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV4 4LB

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:12:18 +0000

Address:
312a Spring Hill, Warstones Rd, Penn, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, WV4 4LB

Review:

The food was simply delicious, the best meal out I've had in months. I had the grilled sea bass, with sauteed potatoes, which tasted fantastic, and the creamed leeks/creamed spring onions (I couldn't work out which) set it off perfectly. If you like seafood - visiting here is a must. There must have been 10 fresh fish dishes on the menu, ranging from sea bass, to barramundi, and crab. Non-fish included the usual steak fare, coq-au-vin, a number of vegetarian options. The place is very well decorated with a very rustic feel.

Celebrity Chefs go around the world in 60 dishes to support charity

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:18:12 +0000

Top celebrity chefs, including Gordon Ramsey, Brian Turner and Delia Smith, have donated recipes to a cook book produced by BUPA to raise funds for three cancer charities and celebrate the company's 60th anniversary.

The book, Around the World in Sixty Dishes, goes on sale today. BUPA also secured contributions from employees across the globe - including Spain, Bolivia and the Middle East - who donated recipes to the publication.

Celebrity chefs support Streetsmart campaign

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:43:56 +0000

Gordon Ramsay and Antony Worrall Thompson are amongst many famous chefs supporting the annual Streetsmart "put on a pound this Christmas" campaign.

For ten years, StreetSmart has encouraged diners to eat out at Christmas, so that while eating out at a restaurant a voluntary £1 per table is added to restaurant diners’ bills during November and December.

Diners at Oxo Tower, Nobu, E&O and Smiths of Smithfields all contributed to the £500,000 raised last year. This year the campaign is joined by Skylon, Wild Honey and Barrafina who join the campaign for the first time.

Bonaventure, Aird Uig, Isle of Lewis, HS2 9JA

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:02:48 +0000

Address:
Aird Uig, Isle of Lewis, HS2 9JA

Review:

My wife and I dined at this restaurant on 23 August 2007. I had been induced to seek it out by the rave reviews on the home page of the restaurant's website and in local tourist brochures. We looked it over on 22 August and we were (or at least I was) enchanted by its position. Anticipating an excellent meal we arrived ravenous having spent the day motoring around the island.

The intrusive piped music that we heard on arrival should have warned us; but it was a wet day and the open fire seemed very welcoming. A table by the window with a view over the sea took our minds off the background noise and we ordered our wine.

The Wine Show, 25-28 October, Business Design Centre, London

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 11:20:13 +0000

Apologies to anyone who applied for tickets to the show and didn't receive them. We were overwhelmed with requests.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 09:49:36 +0000

So, join in, if you can. Spy readers voted Gordon Ramsay their favourite tv chef, so if you do know of any failing restaurant in your area, contact the programme at: kitchen.nightmares@optomen.com

Remember to mention you saw it at Restaurant Spy.

Join Restaurant Spy

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 11:07:40 +0000

Special offers, our mighty newsletter that's never come out yet, things we haven't thought of yet, cruel and unnecessary writing about the food trade - everything you could possibly want from your favourite independent restaurant review site. Don't hang around...join by sending us your email below.

And, rest assured we never ever give or sell the list to anyone. Not even if they ask nicely.

Cool Clear Water?

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:28:28 +0000

Seventh-grader Jasmine Roberts became a celebrity of sorts in February when her hometown Tampa Tribune published results of her winning science-fair entry, which concluded that the drinking-water ice of several local fast food restaurants contains more bacteria (including some E. coli) than the same restaurants' toilet water. She used a laboratory at the University of South Florida's Moffitt Cancer Center, where she is a volunteer assistant for a professor.

Heavy Petting

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 10:28:28 +0000

Several cafes in Hong Kong now lend their dining guests dogs and cats to pet during their visits. This temporary affection, according to a January Der Spiegel dispatch, is popular because Hong Kong residents find it so inconvenient to own pets in such a densely populated city.

Also in January, the owner of the Augsburg, Germany, restaurant La Boheme confirmed that while customers are welcome to bring their own dogs with them when they dine, "small children" are not allowed in the evenings. "After a hard day's work, (diners) want some peace," he told Agence France-Presse.

Little Chef, A motorway near you

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 10:53:12 +0000

Address:
A motorway near you!

Review:

The Little Chef chain seems to have been modelled on 1950s American diners. Plenty of parking, bright, cheerful and open, the stainless steely cooking area lining one side. Seating is fairly well spaced with a wood-and-formica feel and plenty of laminated menus. They also have 'bottomless' drinks, meaning if you finish your tea or coffee they will fill you up again free of charge. Very American and also very civilized. They even serve the tea in pots, so full marks there. Now, the food. The Little Chef childrens' menu is a good starting point. In most restaurants the kids' menu is a smaller version of the adult one. In Little Chef the adult menu seems to be a larger version of the kids' and Jamie Oliver would not approve; kids choose from hot dogs, spag boll, fish fingers, pizza, chicken nuggets and burgers all with lashings of chips. The odd vegetable or sprig of salad waves a valiant flag only to be over-run by a sea of chips and onion rings. The adult menu is more or less the same sort of thing, but bigger. They are, not surprisingly, very hot on big grease up breakfasts and everything is not unreasonably priced considering the captive motorway punters. As well as the bigged up kids' menu there are steaks, chicken things, BLT's etc and I went for a chicken thing that was supposed to be 'spiced'. It was OK but safely bland, which applies to most of the offerings. The menu dutifully reminds us that health is an option and one or two dishes have a salady option but they are clearly not on secure ground with salads. They can do the bought in Coleslaw but the fresh consists of some leafy fronds and a few terrified cherry tomatoes entering the sea of stodge as a sheep might tiptoe into a pack of ravenous wolves. For a pit-stop, which is what it is, Little Chef is OK and it's a notch or two above McDonalds. Over the last few years English food has improved by leaps and bounds, as the existence of websites like this can testify, and we have more entries in the top 10 restaurants in the world than France but in the world of roadside eateries we are still lagging behind. Surely someone with a bit of imagination and the desire to serve really good food to the weary traveller could clean up in this area? Harry 2005

Sarpik Ittuk, Coastal ship tour, Greenland

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 08:53:21 +0000

Address:
Coastal ship tour, Greenland

Review:
A bit of a cheat really as this isn't a restaurant per se, but it is the place I ate in for two weeks. Normally a coastal ferry, for a month a year it does cruises up the coast of Greenland, up as far north as you can get without starting to walk (I think we got to about 1,000km from the pole, which ain't bad). The menu changed day to day and as you'd expect, fish predominated. A good thing here as it is uniformly fresh and tasty.

Submit Review

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:26:26 +0000

This site relies on your independent unbiased reviews. We don't publish all reviews however, so make sure that your review covers the whole of the dining experience and please refrain from personal comments unless they are funny. Please don't try to publish a review if you are the owner or chef of an establishment or in any way connected - if we find out we'll get very cross.

So here's what to do:

Submit Review

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 09:26:26 +0000

This site relies on your independent unbiased reviews. We don't publish all reviews however, so make sure that your review covers the whole of the dining experience and please refrain from personal comments unless they are funny. Please don't try to publish a review if you are the owner or chef of an establishment or in any way connected - if we find out we'll get very cross.

So here's what to do: