Few clichés in food criticism are as vacuous as this observation commonly applied to exotic cuisines:
Not all dishes will be to all tastes…
The last to use it was Matthew Norman of The Guardian in his Weekend magazine review of the London Szechuan restaurant My Old Place.
I challenge him or anyone else who’s ever shared this revelation to [...]

Picture a one-armed South Bank street performer juggling pumpkins while being sprayed from the Thames by a naked Duke of Edinburgh skidding by on a jet ski and you can begin to appreciate my astonishment upon seeing an elegant Knightsbridge woman walk out of  Jack O’Shea butcher shop without one of its incomparable pork belly [...]

When the old hall of London’s Borough Market was shut a month ago to facilitate construction of a new Thameslink train line into London Bridge station, the baker De Gustibus was one of four traders suddenly forced to give up their stalls. That was a devastating development both for the DG employees who would likely [...]

Rather than violate the civil liberties of a law-abiding British citizen I would prefer that Gwilym Davies voluntarily strap a GPS tracking bracelet to his ankle. But if the 2009 World Barista Champion refuses to help us trace his movements via GPS or constant twitter updates I may soon have to ask my man at [...]

Is August a bad month for salt beef? I certainly hope so. For if the drop in form at two of London’s very best salt beef purveyors is not due to seasonal disruptions, it isn’t only my list of the top 5 salt beef sandwiches in London that will need to be overhauled. I’ll have [...]

Whenever in London you can congratulate 2009 British and now World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies in person – and have a great coffee while you’re at it. Gwilym pulls his award-winning shots from an espresso cart parked at the Whitecross Street Market on weekdays (mornings through lunch) and behind the Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday [...]

Dear Andy Hayler,
I stumbled upon your review of Moro (34-36 Exmouth Market, London EC1), which was reprinted at myvillage.com, and had great difficulty digesting your description of its bread as “poor, too airy, floury and lacking salt”. The hardest part for me to chew was the too-airy bit. My recurring complaint about the breads at London bakeries [...]

In his review of Corrigan’s Mayfair in London, Matthew Norman devotes the first 285 words to a single hypothesis: The best professional cooks are, like Norman himself, portly:
Just as you can’t put too much faith in a bald barber or in a psychiatrist whose jacket does up from the back, so you cannot fully trust a [...]

The logic to Devine’s metaphorical flourish is inescapable:

If, (A), al dente, an Italian expression meaning “to the teeth”, is commonly used to describe the firm, desirably chewy texture of pasta and, (B), “chewy” is an accepted term in the wine lexicon for fleshy, firm-structured, full-bodied wines, then, (C), the Domaine Gay-Coperet Moulin à Vent tastes like fettuccine.

At lunch on Thursday, Peter Harden, the co-publisher (with his brother Richard) of Harden’s London and UK restaurant guides, named a 7th (or is it now 8th) reason why diners seek out restaurant reviews: cover from blame should a restaurant suggestion of theirs disappoint.
One vital reason people consult guides and newspaper critiques is when they are [...]