Andy Lynes

I ate at Central in the Jean Louis Palladin room as part of a press group of 11 people. We shared the very good gourgeres (light, cheesy and savoury) and the charcuterie (which was excellent although not quite as good as Daniel Boulud's in Vegas) with really excellent bread. I had the crab cake with leek tartare which delicious, followed by the lobster burger with salad which was enjoyable and then the banana split which was frankly ridiculous. The portion wasn't big, it was gigantic which was sort of the theme of the evening. The burgers were about the only things that weren't outsized, with the fried chicken being the most monsterous. Our lovely waitress Pamela told me that customers clear their plates but I, as a greedy, overweight and enthusiastic diner simply couldn't imagine it. We cleared perhaps 30% of the food we were served, although a plethora of sides upped the waste ratio quite considerably - not because they weren't good (the mac and cheese was the best I've ever had) but because we just could manage them. Delicious food, just way too much of it.

The best room service I ever had was at 47 Park Street http://www.grandresidenceclub.com/en-us/lo...tions_index.jsp - where breakfast came courtesy of Le Gavroche. I don't think they're involved any more but it might be worth looking into.

That'll be Deanes http://www.michaeldeane.co.uk/deanes.asp which has closed the upstairs fine dining restaurant that held the star and gone for a more casual style. I think he's a really good cook and the revamped restaurants would be worth a visit I imagine (haven't been for a good few years now).

The nice Brightonians could not support one!!!!!!! ← Brightonians certainly could (there is no lack of money in the area) but probably wouldn't.

Gosh, that's, um, unexpected. Time for a banofee pie revival I guess.

A reasonable picture here click. Combine that with the images at the restaurant's website click and it should give you a pretty good idea of what the place looks like. I went for lunch soon after it opened and had some really delicious food although the chef has since moved on. I really liked the room and we had a mixture of very good and rather pushy service.

I probably just wasn't trying hard enough to dislike it - I'll do better next time.

I'd be interested to hear about your most recent experience and where you felt it fell short.

I'm amazed to hear that - I had the tasting menu at dinner last week and it was pretty much faultless.

The hotel are currently building an outdoor terrace restaurant so the view from Foliage is a bit industrial at the moment. Food is undeniably good however. Had a really stunning meal at The Grill at the Dorchester recently, there's a chef who's at the top of his game. But that Scottish themed room - oh my God! Tom Aikens is on top form at the moment - very classical stuff compared to his mental "30 things on a plate and strew micro greens every bloody where" phase. Really delicious food, strong, well balanced flavours, great presentation, excellent service and a nice buzz to the room. Also a must if you demand 15 substantial petit fours to finish your meal with. I've heard an extremely positive report about Petrus from a chef who went recently - "three star food, best meal I've ever had". Hibiscus is absolutely cracking and The Ledbury continues to get better and better. He does an excellent version the L'Aperge celeriac dish which is almost worth a visit by itself and the bacon brioche is simply the best bread in London full stop.

Matthew has left the building click.

To be balanced about this, its also worth noting that Terry "The Man Who Knows" Durack recently gave the Paris restaurant 18/20 which is not to be sniffed at - click.

Nearly choked on my instant cappucino when I read that - very funny.

You might want to read this thread from eGullet's France board before making a booking at the Connaught - click.

That's been scrapped. There was a third party involved and I understand that the partnership fell through for reasons beyond Rogan's control.

Not exactly recently, but I have been click.

Its finally happened - Ramsay and Wareing have got a divorce click.

If only someone had picked up the phone two months ago and made a booking for 50 at Maze we could all have saved ourselves a great deal of time.

Chris Horridge's starter scored 29 out of 30 to come top of the judges scoreboard last night and so will almost certainly be served on the big night. Probably rather pointlessly, I voted to Glyn Purnell's trifle which ended up in 5th place according to the judges (viewers votes are yet to be taken into account, although the voting for the starter is now closed). He'd tinkered with the recipe apparently and it was overly sweet - damn shame in my opinion.

You have to hand it to Gordon (or more likely, Jo Barnes his publicist), he really knows how to handle the media. He knows that its a physical impossibility for the British media not to report his every move and utterance, however ludicrous. So he doesn't say "I think it would be a good idea if more chefs used seasonal produce." No, he says he spoken to the bloody prime minister no less about pushing legislation through parliment - and the quicker the better mind you - to force chefs to be local and seasonal and fine them if they don't . Somehow, he manages to keep a straight face, knowing that he has always used unseasonal, non-British produce on his menus and always will. So that's one round of news stories, convienently timed to coincide with the run up to his new series of the F Word of course. As surely as night follows day, some bright spark in a newsroom says "hold on, I had lunch at Claridges the other days and they served me pata negra with my English asparagus, thats not very local and seasonal is it? Lets stick it to him." Gordon sits back for round two as everyone calls him a hypocrite and chefs eagerly join in the fray and either defend or attack him. Round three comes when Ramsay issues his offical statement admitting he only uses the very best ingredients, and by definition not all will necessarily be local and seasonal. So that's three bites of the media cherry from something that should never have been reported in the first place. The man's a f**king genius, yes?

They did try - we went for all the dishes we really liked the sound of and our waitress told us we'd stumbled on a lot of sweet ones. I'd read that some of the dishes can be searingly hot so she had a tough time talking us out of them. We did change one or two choices but on reflection we should have taken her advice. However, a minor point and didn't spoil the meal. David Thompson is employed as a consultant chef at Nahm and pays regular visits to the kitchen but says he just gets in the way when he's there and that it all runs smoothly without him - this is from my interview in Restaurant magazine with him by the way which is sadly not on line (RossyW - PM me and I'll email it over if you're interested).

I'm so glad British food has managed to shrug off its reputation for being dogmatic. I've often felt that a meal in a restaurant would have been so much better if only the food had held more reasonable opinions and had been willing to enter into a sensible dialogue with me.

He sold his shares to Peter Bowyer in early 07 - that's from the horses mouth.

Thompson no longer has any involvement with Sailor Thai.

Yes and no.