Lunch 'Til Dusk

Making a reservation at eat at The Greenhouse was perhaps one of the best decisions I made for our recent London trip. I followed my chef friend D’s recommendation to plan for a lunch there while we were in town (after hearing him raving all about it and its chef Alex Dilling’s cooking a few weeks ago).

Sunday at Frenchie

My wife gave me a strange look when we (with our nephew) walked into Frenchie at Covent Garden on a Sunday afternoon with absolutely no one inside. I have been raving about my solo dinner at the Frenchie Wine Bar, one of its sister restaurants in Paris, a few years back, so it seems odd that the place was empty when every restaurant on the block was filling with weekend brunch crowd in the busy neighborhood of Covent Garden.

Just Another Breakfast

I dropped by The Wolseley one morning to enjoy its popular breakfast, just because it has become a tourist attraction of sort or for those obsessed with "Full English Breakfast", whatever that means. The restaurant was just a block away Green Park underground station in Mayfair, midway between The Ritz and the Fortnum and Mason store, so essentially in the center just about everything as far as out-of-towners are concerned.

Beauty in the Details

I long admire the work of Chef Anne-Sophie Pic so we made plan to eat at her restaurant in London one afternoon. The restaurant was one of the dining outlets of Four Seasons London at Ten Trinity Square, a relatively new hotel converted from an old building (formerly of Port of London Authority built over a century ago). A quick 2-minute walk from the nearest Tube Station (Tower Hill) I was right in front of this gorgeous building with magnificent facade completed with huge columns and the stair entrance facing the River Thames.

Luxury Hotel Crawl

I am going to call this the "luxury hotel crawl" evening of our London trip, when we started off with a drink at the legendary American Bar at The Savoy followed by dinner at the Rosewood. It's my first time visiting and fell in love with the spectacular decor the moment I stepped in to the lobby with the impressive festive season decorations including a few bigger-than-life pieces made entirely of Lego bricks. A perfect example of combining class with fun.

Fine Dining Inside Stadium

We had a number of good meals while in London this time, but eating at Galvin at Tottenham came down to be one of the more special ones. I kept saying the key part of the London trip was to go on the pilgrimage to the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and watch my favorite team play at the home field - not once but twice in the same week. And I went the extra mile, splurged a little and got myself a ticket at the executive club level for one of those matches.

Lingonberry Meal

We spent one evening to do we thought to be a “very London thing” – that is to have a pre-theatre dinner at a restaurant followed by watching the actual theater play at West End. And doing it on a day with absolutely horrid rain and freezing cold - along the same theme, I suppose.

Middle Eastern in London

We had an awesome time at Yudale Bar in Jerusalem a few years ago for what’s possibly our best Middle Eastern meal ever, so I thought we should visit The Palomar in London under the same group serving a similar style of dishes while we were in town.

For the Slightly Adventurous Minds

We were looking for a casual place to meet up with some friends, and St John Bread and Wine came to mind, for it's only a short hop away on the tube for all of us.

The restaurant - an offshoot of Fergus Henderson's Michelin-starred St John - is right across the street from the hip and trendy Spitalfields Market. The bright and minimally-decorated dining room was already filled with people eating and drinking when we arrived in the early evening and staff inside the open kitchen at the far end was in full action cooking and plating.

Ametsa with Arzak Instruction

I thought part of the reason why our lunch at Dinner by Heston didn't fare as much as the hype was because it's overshadowed by our lunch at Ametsa the day before. Similar to Dinner which was backed by a chef who owned a Michelin 3-starred restaurant, behind Ametsa was Juan Mari and Elena Arzak, who owned the 3-starred Arzak in San Sebastian in the Basque Country (of Spain), which we had a chance to visit a few years back. This London outpost of theirs was rated as one-star in its own right in the latest Michelin guide.

Meal in the City - Lunch at Club Gascon

With jetlag still lingering in our first couple of days in London, we decided to take it easy with our schedule and had lunch at Club Gascon, a small French restaurant close to where we stayed and after a morning when we split ways - me cycling by the river whilst C spent time at her London office (hey, c'est la vie)

Going to Dinner for Lunch

We never had a chance to eat at a Heston Blumenthal restaurant before so this time in London, we made a reservation for lunch at Dinner by Heston, located at the Mandarin Oriental London just across the street from Harvey Nichols at Knightsbridge.

When the restaurant was first open a few years ago, it was quite an event, with everyone trying to score a table at this classy venue in London's prime district, the first branch by the talented Chef Heston outside of his Berkshire, Michelin-starred flagship restaurant Fat Duck. Nowadays it seems like the frenzy has subsided - we were able to get our lunch reservation a couple weeks in advance on the website, instead of the 6-month waitlist that was commonplace back then.

The Kitchen Table London

When I first told people that we were heading to London in June, our foodie friend and long-time Londoner G suggested that we must try Kitchen Table at Bubbledogs owned by his friends, the husband-and-wife team of James Knappett and Sandia Chang. So despite the restaurant was completely booked up for the next 3 months when I checked online - certainly a good indication of how great the place is - I shot an email to Sandia, saying we would take any last-minute empty spots should they became available later on. After a few exchange of emails, luckily at the end someone made a cancellation a couple of weeks before we arrived and two seats became open, so without much hesitation, we took them and quickly re-adjust our schedule.