London Restaurant Week 2008
Your chance to taste the wonders and delights that the ‘world’s best place to eat’ has to offer – and on a budget
London didn’t need the recognition of (New York’s) Gourmet magazine to know it was one of the world’s finest places to dine, but it’s always nice to feel loved. In 2006, the high-brow food bible proclaimed, ‘This is a city filled with chefs at the height of their powers… At the moment, London is the world’s best place to eat.’
Not surprisingly then, the Restaurant Week tradition which has been running in New York for 17 years is now an established part of the London social calendar, with renowned gaffs like Daphne’s, Tamarind, Quilon and Almeida all taking part. Indeed, such is the popularity of London Restaurant Week that it now runs over two weeks!
Not only is it a chance for diners to eat out at some of our most prestigious restaurants for a specially reduced rate, it also gives the city a chance to celebrate its status as a world culinary capital. For 2008, celebrity chef Jean-Christophe Novelli is the figurehead of this MasterCard-sponsored event.
‘lastminute.com’s London Restaurant Week really opens the world of fine dining to everyone, it is a great opportunity to experience fantastic food in superb restaurants,’ says Novelli. ‘London is the best place to hold such an event, it offers some of the best restaurants in the world and such a variety of cuisines, people have to make the most of this.’
Over 100 restaurants will be offering two-course lunches for £15 and three-course dinners for £25. Among them are many Michelin stars twinkling in the gourmet firmament. In fact, you could eat at a different fine-dining establishment every day of the week – or the two weeks!
Spice of life
Time Out on the rise to stardom of top-end Indian dining in London
Critical mass
Guy Dimond explains how London has come to be such a centre for culinary excellence.
Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child
Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child will receive 20p from www.lastminute.com
for every person who dines during London Restaurant Week.
Win! A fabulous trip for two to New York City
To celebrate London Restaurant Week 2008, www.lastminute.com is a giving away a wonderful trip to the Big Apple. Find out more.
How it works
London Restaurant Week allows you to book cut-price meals at more than 100 fine-dining restaurants – typically £15 for a two-course lunch, or £25 for a three-course dinner. Look through the extensive list of participating restaurants at www.londonrestaurantweek.co.uk, and either book via the website or call 0871 472 5407. As part of London Restaurant Week www.lastminute.com will donate 20p to Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child for every person who dines through LRW.
Make your reservation now at www.londonrestaurantweek.co.uk or call 0871 472 5407
Spice of life | Critical mass | Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child
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| Tapas-style Indian lunch at Imli |
Spice of life
Time Out on the rise to stardom of top-end Indian dining in London
The Indian new-wave took off in 1990 with the opening of Chutney Mary. Camellia Panjabi, who at the time was in charge of catering at the luxurious Taj Group of Hotels in India, wanted to make a restaurant that showcased India’s best cooking. Panjabi hand-picked chefs from across the subcontinent who could recreate exciting regional dishes, and for our money, it’s still one of the best places for these dishes and for modern Indian cooking. The success of Chuntney Mary spawned a few other pukka Indian restaurants by the same owners, such as the revamped Veeraswamy, and Amaya.
Tamarind opened in 1994 and broke the link with colonial looks by opting for a striking modern interior, and its excellence was soon recognised with a Michelin star. Tamarind led to a number of spin-offs, including Imli (the Hindi name for tamarind), which is a low-cost canteen serving good regional cooking from the same owners.
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| Masala Zone |
Smart, modern Indian cooking was also being pioneered by chef Vineet Bhatia, who for a while cooked at Zaika restaurant. His style was always cutting-edge, and he introduced many surprising dishes such as chocolate samosas and tandoor-cooked salmon to London menus. His restaurant Rasoi won a Michelin star in 2006.
Iqbal Wahhab converted the Old Westminster Library into the Cinnamon Club in 2001, and it continues to draw the many MPs and lobbyists attracted by its refined and beautifully presented food. It was one of the pioneers of the style of cooking we now call Modern Indian, exemplified at other great new restaurants such as Moti Mahal in Covent Garden.
Greater refinement is one trend, but another is the growth of regional Indian cooking – both on pan-Indian menus and in specialist restaurants such as Quilon. Quilon also won a Michelin star this year for Sriram Aylur’s precise cooking.
London's best Indian restaurants rival some of the best in India – so now is the time to try them.
Spice of life | Critical mass | Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child
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| Cocoon |
Critical mass
How London has come to be such a centre for culinary excellence
Pick up any restaurant guidebook to the UK, and look at the maps for the densest concentrations of restaurants listed. Are they in Bow or Dollis Hill? Croydon or Muswell Hill? Not likely, though all these areas do have an abundance of places to eat. Most of London’s great restaurants are concentrated in a very small central area: Soho, Mayfair, and the West End.
Of course there are good restaurants in the City of London, Notting Hill, and many outlying neighbourhoods from Wandsworth to Crouch End. But there is nothing like a W1 postcode if you’re looking for restaurants which take chances with the menu and interiors that are eye-popping. The West End is a centre for excellence, not just within London, but is also top-ranking internationally.
How did this happen? One theory is that there’s a critical mass of population required to create a lively fine-dining scene, but this isn’t entirely borne out by the facts. Lagos and Mexico City, for example, don’t feature highly in world rankings of fine dining.
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| Homage |
You also have to factor in wealth, then it all starts to make more sense. New York, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Sydney... what do they all have? People with large disposable incomes.
Does this mean London’s West End restaurants are vulnerable to the predicted recession? Yes and no. The best restaurants will always thrive. Even in the dip following 9/11, when a big slowdown was predicted in restaurants revenues as rich international travellers stopped travelling, the best restaurants were still doing very nicely thank you. So don’t expect those big-ticket West End restaurants to enter into any price wars just yet. But then that’s where London Restaurant Week comes in.
Spice of life | Critical mass | Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child
Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child
Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child will receive 20p from www.lastminute.com for every person who dines during London Restaurant Week.
Last year’s event raised over £15,000 for Help a London Child, and, with an additional week of dining, 2008 promises to help raise even more. Help a London Child was founded in 1975 by Lord Attenborough CBE, as Capital 95.8’s charity to assist and give opportunities to thousands of London’s children and young people experiencing abuse, homelessness, disability, poverty and illness.
The charity works to improve the lives of thousands of vulnerable children and young people living in our capital city. It is a grant-giving charity specialising in funding grass roots projects and supporting their work.
Help a London Child relies solely on fundraising and donations in order to keep these projects afloat to help children and young people in need in London.
In 2007 over £1 million was awarded to 481 groups, benefiting over 120,000 children and young people in the capital.
For more on Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child go to www.capitalradio.com.
Spice of life | Critical mass | Capital 95.8’s Help a London Child
Feature by the Time Out Food & Drink team
