Days out in London

Kew Gardens’ celebration of the orchid returns for its twenty-sixth year, this time with a focus on the plant life of botanical hotspot Costa Rica. Kew’s Orchids Festival will see the botanical gardens’ tropical greenhouse bursting with colourful species, and in 2021 they will reflect the country’s diverse landscape – from the eastern coastline that looks out onto the Caribbean Sea, to the western shores, where the Pacific Ocean laps its world-renowned beaches. The Prince of Wales Conservatory will be filled with the sights, smells and sounds of Costa Rica. Highlights will include a dramatic central pond display filled with bright orange and yellow orchids imitating a rising sun, life-sized animals made from blooms like bats, sloths, sea turtles, jaguars and quetzals (a bird important in Mesoamerican mythology), and displays full of the country’s national flower: the Guarianthe skinneri orchid.  There’ll also be a specially-commissioned ambient soundscape with recordings of birdsong, rainfall and forest sounds, and Costa Rican street food on offer to really make you feel like you’ve been transported to sunnier climes.  Safety precautions will be in place, including timed entry slots and a one-way loop around Princess of Wales Conservatory. 

After London’s theatres closed, ‘Uncle Vanya’ was filmed in an empty Harold Pinter Theatre, with the same cast except for Roger Allam, who replaced Ciarán Hinds. It was broadcast on the BBC in December 2020, and will remain on iPlayer for one year. UK audiences can watch it here. If you think we’re all screwed, pity the poor characters in Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya’. Unsuccessful, bored and desperately, desperately lonely, they’re hurtling deeper and deeper into middle age with little in the way of prospects or legacy. And of course they’re all about to be zapped by the Russian Revolution – a prescient air that hangs over all of Chekhov’s plays but here wilfully underscored by adapter Conor McPherson, who has nudged the 1898 play forward by a decade or so.  Nonetheless, Ian Rickson’s revival is a long way away from pure misery. Maybe it’s the chill touch of my own encroaching middle years talking, but I found McPherson’s take the most relatable I’ve seen. ‘Vanya’ is the most malleable of Chekhov’s plays in terms of potential for lols, and this version finds a sweet spot between companionable chuckles and icy despair. Toby Jones is terrific in a vivid, vanity-free take on the title role. At first his sadsack estate administrator comes across as a faintly unbearable pub-bore type, and yet he won me over: he’s decent, witty and has a painfully, often humorously clear view of himself – well aware that he’s far less attractive than his lifelong friend Doctor Astrov. The strapping Ri

The original cast-slash-brains behind Mischief Theatre’s ‘The Play The Goes Wrong’, ‘The Comedy About a Bank Robbery’ etc reunite for this night of improv in which they act out a film based upon audience suggestions. The show was originally going to be a live affair called ‘Mischief Movie Night’, but due to the third lockdown and generally awful state of things, Mischief have reworked it into a live online show, with audience suggestions taken from those paying a premium rate for limited participatory tickets (all sold out alas), although a degree of social media interaction is promised.

In the unlikely event you were worried a leap to the stage for JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series would result in it becoming aggressively highbrow, self-consciously arty or grindingly bereft of magical high jinks, just chill the hell out, muggle.  ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ is an absolute hoot, a joyous, big-hearted, ludicrously incident-packed and magic-heavy romp that has to stand as one of the most unrelentingly entertaining things to hit the West End. Writer Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and a world-class team have played a blinder; if the two-part, five-hour-plus show is clearly a bit on the long side, it’s forgivable. ‘The Cursed Child’ emphatically exists for fans of Harry Potter, and much of its power derives from the visceral, often highly emotional impact of feeling that you’re in the same room as Rowling’s iconic characters.  There’s also a sense that this story of wizards and witches is being treated with the respect its now substantially grown-up fanbase craves. No disrespect to D-Rad and chums, but the leads here are in a different acting league to their film counterparts’: Jamie Parker and Alex Price are superb as battered, damaged, middle-aged versions of old enemies Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Sam Clemmett and Anthony Boyle are a fine, puppyish, sympathetic engine to the play as their awkward sons Albus and Scorpius, trying to escape their parents’ shadows. It is a bit of a sausage (wand?) fest in terms of the lead parts, although in the most

‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ returns to the West End in a socially-distanced production from November 2021. ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ is a burst of joy in the heart of the West End. This new British musical, transferring from the Sheffield Crucible, is the real deal. Watch out, tired revivals: there’s a new kid in town. Inspired by a 2011 BBC documentary about a teenager who wanted to be a drag queen, the show follows 16-year-old Jamie on his journey to be himself – out of a classroom in a working-class part of Sheffield, away from the bigotry of a deadbeat dad, and into high heels. Director Jonathan Butterell’s production is a high-impact blaze of colour, combining video projections with seamless scene changes and a live band above the stage. It captures the frenetic energy of being a teenager. Every element of this show works beautifully together. The music, by The Feeling frontman Dan Gillespie Sells, is a deft mix of irresistibly catchy, pop-honed foot-tappers – try not to hum ‘And You Don’t Even Know It’, I dare you – and truthful, heart-wrenching numbers. This is Sells’s first foray into writing for musicals, but he’s always excelled at telling stories in song. He is matched by the show’s writer and lyricist Tom MacRae. Apart from notable exceptions like Punchdrunk’s ‘Doctor Who’-themed kids’ show ‘The Crash of Elysium’, he’s largely written for TV, but this works well here. His dialogue is punchy, funny and often lands with a sting. While most of the char

These are the new, rescheduled, 2021-22 dates for ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’, whose original West End transfer was scuppered by the pandemic.  This review is from its run at the National Theatre in December 2019. Tickets for the transfer go on sale March 13 2020. Considering how popular fantasy literature and its adaptations currently are, it feels like a bit of an omission that we see so little of it on stage. But Joel Horwood’s over-twelves version of Neil Gaiman’s 2013 novel ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ is emphatically The Way To Do It: a heady, dreamlike whirl of story, scary and beautiful in equal parts, that looks phenomenal and makes expert use of the stylised language of theatre to cram in an entire otherworldly epic.It begins as an unnamed man runs away from his father’s wake, drawn to an old duckpond near his former family home. He is haunted by thoughts of a girl, Lettie (Marli Siu), who he met on his twelfth birthday, in the early-’80s. She is gone, but he comes across her elderly grandmother, Old Mrs Hempstock (Josie Walker), who he only dimly recalls. Her presence revives suppressed memories, of Lettie and her family being an ageless coven of immortal spellcasters; of his home being invaded by Ursula (Pippa Nixon), a malevolent entity from outside the walls of reality; of the fightback, and its consequences.Gaiman’s story is hot property: Simon Pegg, of all people, is apparently making a TV version. But it’ll have to go a long way to catch up with

‘Come from Away’ makes a limited return in February 2021 as a socially-distanced concert, running at the Phoenix Theatre February 10-27. Musicals don’t come much more low-key, wholesome or Canadian than ‘Come from Away’. Writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein cook up the straightforward world of the Newfoundland town of Gander using a very straightforward set of ingredients. The cast wear sensible shoes and lumberjack shirts. They tramp across a wood-decked stage that evokes the huge skies of their tiny island. They sing their way through a set of folk-tinged songs that tell stories of the five days after 9/11, when 38 planes made emergency landings on the island’s huge, disused airstrip. And it’s all totally, soul-feedingly wonderful. ‘Come from Away’ has been a massive sleeper hit across North America, Broadway included, and it’s easy to see why: it mixes down-home authenticity with the desperate intensity that comes in times of crisis. This is a moment where 7,000 temporary arrivals join a community of just 9,000 people. Logistics might not be the sexiest of topics for a musical, but one of the many surprising joys of this show is how gripping it makes things like the struggle to rustle up transport at a time when the local school bus drivers were on strike and had to be coaxed into crossing the picket line. Then there are beds, food, medication and interpreters to be sourced for passengers from across the world: one non-English-speaking couple communicates by cross-referenc

‘Six’ will be the first musical to return to the West End following lockdown. It will play a limited 11-week, socially-distanced run at the Lyric Theatre, with the plan being to return to the Arts Theatre in March 2021, subject to social distancing ending. ‘Remember us from your GCSEs?’ It’s Henry VIII’s six wives – and they’ve back, bitch, to re-tell ‘her-story’ as a slick, sassy girl band. Think Euro-pop remixes of ‘Greensleeves’, Anne Boleyn spouting tweenage text-speak (‘everybody chill/it’s totes God’s will’), and K-Howard warbling #MeToo tales of gropey employers. ‘Hamilton' looms large here, and although ‘Six’ has its own moments of clever-clever hip-hop rhymes, it’s a tough comparison: this musical started life as a student show (Cambridge, obvs). But its creators, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, have succeeded in crafting almost brutally efficient pastiche pop songs – here a ballad, there a ballsy, blinging R&B number – performed with snappy dance routines by a talented, diverse cast (and all-female band). Since inception the show seems to have been given a good lick of gloss, too; it stands up in the West End. But beneath its super-shiny surface, ‘Six’ is totes vacuous. And so basic in its feminism that it’s hard to believe it’s written by, like, actual Millennials. The whole thing is staged as a deeply unsisterly competition, each wife getting a song in which to prove they’re the biggest victim, the one who suffered the most at Henry’s hands. This is treated weirdly as

For the price of a ticket to ‘Mamma Mia! The Party’, an immersive Abba-themed dinner experience set in a ropey taverna on an idyllic Greek island, you could fly out to an actual idyllic Greek island and probably find a ropey taverna playing Abba songs.Okay, there are some practical reasons why you probably wouldn’t do that on a school night. And sure, it’s not like these are the only expensive theatre tickets in town. But the fact is most London theatre shows have a bottom price of £15 or thereabouts; ‘Mamma Mia! The Party’ starts ten times higher than that.Of course, dinner theatre is a somewhat different game to theatre theatre. And the fact is that there are plenty of people who can afford it: the London debut of ‘Mamma Mia! The Party’ is a roaring sellout success already. Masterminded by Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, it’s an established hit back in Stockholm. Which is not really a surprise: people love Abba, and ‘Mamma Mia! The Party’, though not formally affiliated to ‘Mamma Mia!’ (the blockbuster musical), is pretty much the same idea, except with the plot mostly replaced by food. After a prodigious wait to get in, we’re spirited away to an attractive, convivial mock-up of a taverna on the island of Skopelos, where the ‘Mamma Mia!’ movie was filmed. The wittiest touch of the whole production is to make it ‘post’ the film: the walls are bedecked with dodgy mocked-up Polaroids of the cast of the show posing with Meryl Streep et al, and the wafer-thin plot revolves around the prem

In a further sign that the UK theatre industry believes social distancing will be over by spring, new dates and a new theatre have been announced for ‘Good’, which was originally scheduled to run at the Playhouse Theatre in 2020. Original tickets are still valid and will be reallocated, with extra tickets going on public sale Oct 12. David Tennant’s near-obsessive latter-day penchant for playing antiheroes continues with Dominic Cooke’s revival of Scots playwright CP Taylor’s great 1982 play ‘Good’. It charts the moral downfall of John Halder, a decent German professor with a Jewish best friend, Maurice, as he slowly internalises and accepts the ideology of the Third Reich. Tennant stars as Halder, alongside Fenella Woolgar and Elliot Levey, in the first stage outing for Fictionhouse, a new production company from Cooke and Kate Horton, who worked with him at the Royal Court. Design is from Vicki Mortimer.

‘The War of the Worlds’ returns for 2021 with socially-distanced safety measures in place. Keen-eyed readers may notice that this review of the laboriously entitled ‘Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience’ is in fact a re-review: a misunderstanding led to our first writer being invited down before the VR elements of the show were working, so I agreed to write about it again.Anyway. ‘JWMVoTWoTWTIE’ is a VR-augmented immersive theatre show that straddles two iconic properties: HG Wells’s seminal 1897 sci-fi novel ‘The War of the Worlds’, and Wayne’s 1978 prog rock album inspired by it, which has gone on to be an enduringly popular live spectacle complete with puppet Martian war machine and – in some iterations – a holographic Liam Neeson.The album’s spoken word sections offer a divergent telling of Wells’s story, with different characters and a more fragmented plot. Given the task of turning it into a coherent narrative is dotdotdot, a company specialising in tech-enhanced immersive theatre who had a hit last year with their show ‘Somnai’. Their job is to immerse us in Wells’s serious-minded alien invasion story, while incorporating Wayne’s campier embellishments: the characters, the kitschy steampunk art and – of course – the musical anthems.It doesn’t exactly work. But it’s quite good fun. Sent into the experience in small staggered groups, most of the interactions with human actors we encounter are on the comic side, meaning there ca

‘Magic Goes Wrong’ returns to the stage for a limited socially-distanced Christmas season. Erstwhile young scamps Mischief Theatre have spun their pleasant ‘Noises Off’ knock-off ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ into a veritable empire: not only is the original backstage farce still going strong on the West End and off-Broadway, not only do they have another sizeable long-runner in ‘The Comedy About a Bank Robbery’, and not only do they now have an actual BBC1 TV show in the form of ‘The Goes Wrong Show’, but they’ve also won a whole host of US celebrity fans, including JJ Abrams – who co-produced this latest show – and magicians Penn & Teller, who’ve helped them write it.And it’s… okay. There is something charmingly unchanging about the core Mischief players, who are presumably now all millionaires several times over but always attack each new venture with the pure elan of a fledgling university sketch troupe. They’re both winsome and limited, and ‘Magic Goes Wrong’ feels caught at a strange crossroads between Mischief’s bumbling Englishness and Penn & Teller’s edgier interjections.The plot is pretty much contained in the title: neurotic magician Sophisticato (Henry Shields) is throwing a charity magic gala in his late father’s memory, and he’s rustled up some truly terrible acts to perform, notably Henry Lewis’s hack mentalist The Mind Mangler, and Dave Hearn’s entertaining The Blade, an amusing send-up of faux-edgy ‘alt’ magicians.That this somehow stretches on for two-and-a-ha

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ has rescheduled to 2021 for obvious reasons. Rhys Ifans’s name is no longer on the website, though this doesn’t mean he is definitely gone. Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s civil rights classic ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ took Broadway by storm – and caused a fair amount of controversy after the producers aggressively tried to shut down productions of other adaptations of Lee’s 1960 masterpiece. And now Bartlett Sher’s production is coming here, under the auspices of Sonia Friedman Productions, who are having set to have a very big 2021.  Rhys Ifans will star as principled white Southern attorney Atticus Finch, who defends black man Tom Robinson in a rape trial in deeply prejudiced Alabama. It’s slightly unusual casting, that will surely see the gifted but somewhat wild Welsh actor play defiantly against type. Still, the powers that be are presumably not leaving this to chance.  

Oh happy day! Assuming we’re pandemic-free, Whoopi Goldberg will finally be jetting into London to reprise her second-to-nun performance in ‘Sister Act’. She'll get back into the habit in ‘Sister Act - The Musical’, which'll be her first ever live performance as Deloris. This newly revised stage version of the 1992 hit movie will bring a horde of singing, dancing women of god to Eventim Apollo Hammersmith. Jennifer Saunders is lined up to play Mother Superior, who casts a beady eye on Deloris's efforts to get a convent full of nuns singing disco hits, with Clive Rowe as police lieutenant Eddie Souther.  ‘Sister Act - The Musical‘ features songs by superstar composer Alan Menken (‘Aladdin’, ‘Little Shop of Horrors’), lyrics by Glenn Slater, and a book by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner. This production is directed by Bill Buckhurst, whose breakout hit was an award-winning revival of ‘Sweeney Todd’ set in a real pie shop. The only thing to put a damper on the rejoicing? The top ticket price is an ouch-inducing £249.50 – get in there early to save your pennies.

‘101 Dalmations’ was scheduled to open the Regent’s Park Theatre’s 2020 season, but has been moved to 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak. The ‘big summer musical’ is the annual highlight of the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre calendar, one being fulfilled this year with a revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel’. But to open the season, there's also this all-singing adaptation of Dodie Smith’s iconic kids’ novel – best known, of course, for the Disney cartoon film – which is, astonishingly, the theatre’s its first-ever original musical commission. Acclaimed playwright Zinnie Harris writes the book and actor/director/general polymath Douglas Hodge the songs, with the presence of the excellent Toby Olié as puppetry designer and director a fair clue as to how the hordes of hounds will manifest themselves. The first bit of casting has been announced: Kate Fleetwood will be setting her distinctive angular features to the roles of baddie Cruella de Vil.

‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ returns to its longterm home the Duchess Theatre in a new, socially-distanced production from November 19. We’re hopeful the show’s safety measures will at least go according to plan. This comedy has, of course, actually done everything right. Produced by LAMDA graduates Mischief Theatre, the show has had successful runs at the Old Red Lion in Islington, Trafalgar Studios, and in Edinburgh; now it's made it all the way to the West End. Amid all the chatter about the overbearing West End dominance of jukebox musicals and film spin-offs, it’s cheering to see a dynamic young company land slap-bang in the middle of Theatreland.The show is a farcical play-within-a-play. Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society are mounting a production of a hoary old sub-‘Mousetrap’ mystery called ‘The Murder at Haversham Manor’. From the first moment, in which a hapless stage manager attempts to secure a collapsing mantelpiece, we suspect that things are not going to go to plan. And that, indeed, is the case, as the production shudders painfully into chaos, taking in everything from dropped lines to disintegrating sets, intra-cast fighting, technical malfunctions of the highest order, and an unexpectedly resuscitated corpse.The show sits in a fine tradition of British slapstick, and of plays about theatrical blunders: its debt to Michael Frayn’s hilarious ‘Noises Off’, about the gradual disintegration of a touring rep production, is considerable. This is, to be fair, acknowled

The West End may be tentatively reopening again, but even if all goes to plan there will be just a fraction of the musicals running there as 2020 ends that were there when it began (probably two, if ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ is able to join the confirmed ‘Six’). However, for seven performances only, most of the shows we’ve been missing will be back – in song form anyway – with charity concert ‘The Show Must Go On! Live at the Palace Theatre’. The night will raise money for the theatre charities Acting for Others and The Fleabag Support Fund, and will feature performances of songs from ‘Hamilton’, ‘Les Mis’, ‘Phantom’, ‘& Juliet’, ‘Come From Away’, ‘Dear Evan Hansen’, ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’, ‘Mamma Mia!’, ‘The Prince of Egypt’, ‘Six’, ‘Tina – The Tina Turner Musical’, ‘Wicked’ and more.  A big-name cast was announced for the original run of dates in November, though it’s TBC for the new dates.

Well this feels strangely significant: though this all-singing version of Robert Zemeckis ’80s time-travelling classic has had try outs in Manchester and has been in the works for years (Jamie Lloyd was hired to direct a version that ultimately didn’t make it to the stage), its May 2021 start date is the most confident we’ve seen producers of a West End show in terms of belief that the era of social distancing is drawing to a close. That’s not to say ‘Back to the Future: The Musical’ can’t or won’t be pushed back, and in a concession to the current era, you can exchange tickets for another performance up to 24 hours before the performance you hold tickets for. However, delays cost money and there’s clearly a significant belief that things will be close to normal again by next spring.  In terms of the show: well you know what ‘Back to the Future’ is – ‘80s highschooler Marty McFly travels back to the 1950s in Doc Brown’s time-travelling DeLorean and gets up to sundry delightful time-travelling antics including almost having it off with his own mum. Roger Bart and Olly Dobson will reprise their Manchester roles of Doc Brown and Marty, alongside Hugh Coles as George McFly, Rosanna Hyland as Lorraine Baines, Cedric Neal as Goldie Wilson, Aidan Cutler as Biff Tannen and Courtney-Mae Briggs as Jennifer Parker.

In a surprise twist worthy of ‘The Mousetrap’, ‘The Mousetrap’ is back! Agatha Christie’s indestructible whodunnit will be the first West End show to return after lockdown, complete with rigorous social-distancing measures At the end of this elegant Agatha Christie thriller, the newly uncovered homicidal maniac steps into a sinister spotlight and warns everyone never to reveal his or her identity. The production recently celebrated its 60th birthday and although Wikipedia and Stephen Fry have both blown the murderer's cover, there is a remarkable conspiracy of silence over 'The Moustrap'. The real mystery of the world's longest-running theatre show is not whodunit but, in its currently mediocre state, whydoit at all? 'The Mousetrap's ticket prices are the only element of this show that isn't stuck fast in the 1950s – although the actors' strained RP does make the odd break for the twenty-first century. Otherwise, this is a walking, talking piece of theatre history and – at £39 for a full-price stalls seat – the most expensive museum exhibit in London. Christie's neat puzzler of a plot is easier to defend. It has defied the inevitably mummifying process of more than 25,000 performances and still possesses an uncanny precision worthy of the mistress of murder's chilling geriatric creation, Miss Marple. In the 60 years since it premiered, its premise, in which six Cluedo-like middle-class stereotypes are imprisoned by snow in a country house while they try to fathom which of the

This spectacular puppet-driven stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s bestselling novel was a massive success when it premiered in Sheffield in 2019. Festooned with five-star-reviews, a West End transfer looked inevitable, and Cameron Mackintosh is doing the honours, with the promise that Wyndham’s Theatre will be ‘transformed’ to accommodate Max Webster’s production, which is adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti and has puppets by Finn Caldwell.  The novel, if you somehow missed it, concerns Pi, an Indian boy who ends up adrift on the ocean with a small group of animals – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan… and a giant Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

After starring in suffragette musical 'Sylvia' at the Old Vic, soul-singing legend Beverley Knight is back in the West End in Autumn 2020, and she's found an unlikely vehicle for her talents; a new musical about all-male singing group The Drifters. 'The Drifters Girl' centres on the woman behind the band, Faye Treadwell, who was the first African-American female manager and who helped propel the group to stardom over three decades. It'll be packed with Drifters hits like 'Stand By Me', 'Down By the Boardwalk' and 'Save the Last Dance For Me', quite a few of which will presumably be retooled to suit Knight's vocal talents. 'The Drifters Girl' premieres in Newcastle, before coming to Garrick Theatre in October 2020. 

If Rick James and Jay Gatsby got together to throw a bash, I reckon it would look like Fitz’s Bar. Jazz Age plumage fluffs up from behind chairs while a giant glitter ball hangs from above; the back bar’s arches hint at art deco elegance while bright modern art punctuates the walls; and music drifts from up-tempo funk to mellow jazz. Fitz’s sits inside the Kimpton Fitzroy London, just on the corner of Russell Square. This hotel comes from a UK group with prestige, and you sense it from the marble-heavy lobby leading into this disco decadence. Staff in floral print were accommodating from the get-go, showing off their new home as we entered and offering suggestions on where to take our night when we came to settle up. They promptly poured water and served Twiglets on the side, a fittingly retro touch. Snacks from the menu are well worth your attention, too – from oozing bone-marrow croquettes dressed with capers to salty hasselback potatoes topped with sour cream and caviar. Gatsby would approve. The cocktail menu is filled with illustrations and word clouds to help you figure out flavours. A fizz-heavy Spy Princess (£17) was served in a coupe with a splay of pretty petals on its frothy top. Veer from champagne cocktails and you get a more affordable hotel bar experience – £14 will get you a quirky and sublime cucumber-flavoured daiquiri or a Vesca Negroni, the classic drink lifted with coconut and rosehip. The team hails from London bars Milk & Honey and Callooh Callay – and

The Connaught, that most discreetly low-key of London’s mega-expensive hotels, has not one but two great bars. The Coburg, at the front, is a bit like a gentlemen’s club in feel. The Connaught, designed by the renowned David Collins, is all about style and glamour – mirrors, low lighting, silver leaf, tasteful palette, lots of plush seating for intimate conversation. It’s obviously popular with hotel residents too, so don’t come here looking for local colour. But even if you can only stretch to a single drink, it’s worth it: count out every last penny and treat yourself. The cocktail menu is stuffed with peerless examples of all the originals, but for the true Connaught experience the only way to travel is on the martini trolley – order one and it will be wheeled up beside you, with the drink mixed on top.

Any restaurant where you can say the words ‘Thai’ and ‘barbecue’ in the same breath gets my vote. Kiln is the latest gaff from self-taught chef Ben Chapman – of Smoking Goat fame – and aims to take its by-the-roadside cooking style to the next level. And yup, his Thai barbecue game is pretty strong. Smoking Goat has more of a dive bar vibe, with a handful of dishes and the kitchen out of sight. At Kiln, the ground floor is all about two things: cooking or eating. A stainless-steel counter runs its full length. Behind it runs the equally long open kitchen. There’s action and cheffery and drama at every swivel of your stool.  Sit at the back for the pyromaniac seats: a view into the kiln itself. Inside this small, insulated furnace, chestnut and oak logs are sent to their fiery end, the glowing embers occasionally removed to ‘feed the grill’ (as in, the chargrill) or ‘feed the tao’. A tao, in case you’re wondering, is a round ceramic container: you keep adding embers until there’s enough heat to cook on, using either a wok or a clay pot. Want to turn the heat down? Simple: take out an ember. It’s brilliantly low-tech. The food is similarly stripped back. Dishes may be inspired by rural Thailand, but, where possible, they’re made with world-class British produce, mostly from indie Cornish suppliers. The lemongrass and Szechuan pepper, for instance, comes from a coastal polytunnel (a project Chapman helped fund).  The pork loin – cut from rare breed, fully free-range pigs – showc

It’s not easy to open a spate of brand-new restaurants and maintain high standards, but chef-patron Jason Atherton has clearly moved on from being the sorcerer’s apprentice (under Gordon Ramsay) to being the sorcerer himself. His Little Social deluxe bistro only opened in March 2013, right opposite his fine dining Pollen Street Social in Mayfair. He followed this up, weeks later, with an even more ambitious restaurant in Soho, by delegating the chef role to his buddy and long-time head chef at Pollen Street Social, Paul Hood. The ground-floor dining room has a mirrored ceiling to create the sensation of space in a low room; upstairs is a smart cocktail bar, called the Blind Pig, which also has a separate entrance. Most of the action is in the dining room, though, with a kitchen brigade who are clearly at the top of their game. Smoked duck ‘ham’, egg and chips is a dish that’s typical of Pollen Street Social’s playfulness. ‘Ham’ is cured and smoked from duck breast on the premises, served with a breadcrumbed duck egg that’s molten in the middle, but with an aroma of truffle oil. Umami – savouriness, the taste that enhances other flavours – was also plentiful in a roast cod main course that uses powdered Japanese kombu seaweed in a glaze, served with a creamy sauce of roasted cockles and just-in-season St George’s mushrooms. Presentation is a strong point of Hood’s dishes, just as they are for his mentor Atherton. A starter of ‘CLT’ – crab meat, a fan of blonde castelfranco rad

NOPI’s chef-owner is Yotam Ottolenghi, who struck culinary gold a few years back with his game-changing Ottolenghi cafés. This somewhat more grown-up, all-day restaurant shares a similar look and ethos, but is more formal. The white decor is warmed up with brass fittings; the basement contains large sharing tables and an open kitchen. The inventive cooking has a firm foundation in the Middle East and takes bold flavour forays into the Mediterranean and Asia. You can go the conventional route, with starters and mains, or take the opportunity for wider grazing by sticking to sharing plates (but these are quite small). Vegetarians have plenty of choice, with dishes such as a savoury cheesecake with gently pickled beetroot, crunchy hazelnuts and thyme honey, or a moreish side portion of truffled polenta chips. Star dish was spiced gurnard served Vietnamese-style: taken off the bone, mixed with chilli and spices, wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed. NOPI isn’t the greatest bargain in town (a main course of comparatively lacklustre chickpea dumplings with tahini and yoghurt cost a stiff £19). Two-hour table slots are strictly enforced, and service can seem rushed as a consequence. The wine list is as wide-ranging as you’d expect, with some excellent (if pricey) selections.  

Japanese and Italian may seem unlikely bedfellows, but chefs in the Land of the Rising Sun have been perfecting paper-thin pizza crusts and mastering the art of al dente for years. This Italo-Japanese mash-up – itameshi – is the MO at Angelina, an elegant addition to Dalston Lane Terrace’s restaurant strip. Inside, it’s a place of two halves: the front is all monochromatic fancy dining with ashen marble tables, bold foliage and lantern lighting, while the back is home to a bustling L-shaped bar overlooking the kitchen. Changing twice-weekly, the five-plate tasting menu is, at £39, a steal. It includes extras like homemade focaccia and bonito-dusted doughnuts with anchovy aioli. Our bustling Thursday night visit began with veggie fritto misto: battered sage and pumpkin, with hefty cavolo nero leaves the triumph of the trio. Sea bream sashimi, delicately infused with bergamot, came alongside a lukewarm celeriac and feta dish (truly the only bum note of the evening). While ‘starters’ were umami-heavy nods to Japan, the two main plates leant towards Italy. A giant raviolo came souped in a tonkotsu-style broth and dotted with crisp guanciale hunks. Later, I could have lapped the velvety soy butter on a John Dory fillet by the gallon. The devilishness of the detail carried right through to a monte bianco-style dessert: pumpkin biscuit base, with chestnut cream and a chewy, browned meringue top. While the space itself whispers ‘sophistication,’ the service is down-to-earth loveli

Who needs stuffy old museums? The dining room of the Gallery at Sketch is one of the most playful – and most pink – places to be enveloped by art. The walls have around 200 original prints and drawings by Turner Prize-winning David Shrigley, their cartoonish quality adding to the sense of fun. He’s even designed some of the crockery: ‘ghosts’, say the teapots, ‘forget about it’, quips the inside of your cup. You can come here for dinner, but afternoon tea is what The Gallery has become famous for, so much so that you can get it before noon (it starts, specifically, at 11.30am). Service is outstanding. Once your charming host has talked you through how it works, you’re looked after by a dedicated ‘tea master’: glam gals in slinky cocktail dresses and baseballs shoes. Who happen to really know their brews. After you’ve decided on drinks and a menu (standard, children’s or – if notice is given – a special dietary needs option), the fun begins. First, there’s the caviar man, in a panama hat and pale blazer. You get a spoonful of caviar (Russian Sturgeon, cultivated in France) alongside Egg and Soldiers: two slim, cheesy toast strips and a fake egg in a very real egg cup (the white is an exceptionally good Comté cheese mornay, the yolk is from a quail and cooked to an ultra-soft 63 degrees). There’s a similar level of creativity throughout the sandwiches and cakes. Star of the sarnies was a black bread Croque d’York, or the salmon and soured cream on rye, while a perfect pear tart

For anyone who likes sushi, Yashin is a must. Tucked down a side road off Kensington High Street, its exterior looks more like a smart French brasserie than a Japanese restaurant. But the centrepiece sushi counter gives the game away as soon as you step inside. Set on the dark green tiles behind the team of itamae (sushi chefs), a neon sign reads ‘without soy sauce’, and this is how the chefs ask you to eat your artfully crafted sushi. In place of a dunking, each piece is finished with its own flavourings – perhaps a dab of tangy ume plum paste, a spoon of tosa jelly, or a quick blast from a blowtorch (perfect for balancing the richness of fatty tuna). The rest of the menu also displays precision and innovation: a testament to the chef-founder’s grounding in the intricate art of kaiseki cuisine. A delicate dish of saikyo lamb was dotted with sweet miso and summer berries, while buttery sautéed razor clams (just a little overcooked) came with generous slices of summer truffle. The wine and saké lists are long and well chosen, and the clientele and service are as you’d expect from a classy dining establishment – though staff have proved slightly less attentive in the basement, so eat upstairs if you can. 

Most people embrace the mantra ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Not Mr Lyan. London’s leading mixologist has built up bars only to tear them down at their height, like some boozy oligarch. Okay, he’s not that: Ryan Chetiyawardana is a scientist with a snappy dress sense and a fresh approach to cocktails, who was shaping the conversation around sustainability long before the debate about the the straw in your drink. Going the way of the game-changing White Lyan and Super Lyan before it, South Bank hotel bar Dandelyan – declared the ‘World’s Best Bar’ just six months ago – is his latest victim. He’s flipped the glossy space in ten days, and Lyaness now takes its place. Clearly, reinvention is part of the scientific approach, but what does it mean for a diehard Dandelyan fan? Superficially, not a lot. Lyaness is in the same spot, run by the same team with the same aim – crafting awesome drinks that make you think. The powder-blue makeover adds freshness, but the layout mostly remains the same. The real overhaul is saved for the menu – seven newly created ingredients feature, with three different drinks made from each. Components like ‘Infinite Banana’ and ‘King Monkey Nut’ are a level up from the leather, concrete and cardboard that Mr Lyan’s used in cocktails before. Page-long blurbs accompany each souped-up ingredient and when I asked a staff member about the ‘Ultra Raspberry’ in my Snap Crackle Bellini, I got a speech about ‘parmigiano water’ that I really didn’t understand

From the couple who brought us cult faves Nightjar and Oriole comes Swift, swooping into the former site of the celebrated, groundbreaking Lab Bar. Frankly, if they’d named it Tit I’d have still been excited, since here they’ve also teamed up with folks who’ve worked across Milk & Honey and Callooh Callay, to overwhelming success. Swift is split in two: a buzzy, casual-yet-sparkling bar on the ground level and a dark lounge below. Upstairs, the look is faintly Italian, mirrored in a menu of affordable aperitivos. This includes an unmissable sgroppino – a thick and frothy prosecco-based drink with lemony sorbet floating on top. For snacks, nearby drinkers ordered oysters, but I was happily ensconsed in a Guinness welsh rarebit, heavy with pungent cheese and onion. Pongy titbits notwithstanding, Swift makes a great date spot. If it’s going well, take it downstairs. The basement is lit for romantic trysts, the showy side of Oriole and Nightjar eschewed in favour of pared-back sophistication. Staff are attentive, guiding you through an original menu edging towards nightcaps. I tried a powerful Amber Cane, a reinvented manhattan using rum in place of whisky. So taking over the spot where London’s cocktail-making reputation was cemented doesn’t seem too bold. Doing it in such a stripped-back way was the ballsy move, but, boy has it paid off. Time for a Swift one.

The Shard you already know. Hutong, halfway up the Shard, needs more than just a ni hao of introduction. Like the original Hutong in Hong Kong, this is a glitzy, high-end Chinese restaurant with magnificent views and ersatz Old Beijing decor, the same Sichuan and northern Chinese menu, and a clientele comprised mainly of tourists and expats. What’s different about the Hong Kong and London kitchens is the level of spice, with the traditionally fiery cuisine having been toned down a bit for the gweilo (foreigner) palate. Delicate starters of chilled sliced scallops served with pomelo segments or octopus salad with hot and sour sauce are followed by mouthwatering mains such as prawn wontons with ma-la (‘numbing, spicy hot’ sauce), a ‘red lantern’ of softshell crabs or Mongolian-style barbecue rack of lamb. It's not cheap, but then this is the Shard, not Chinatown. Also in the Shard: Hong Kong restaurant group Aqua has taken over the 31st and 33rd floors of the Shard. On the 33rd floor is Hutong, a contemporary Chinese restaurant modelled on the Hong Kong restaurant of the same name. On the 31st floor is Aqua Shard, a British restaurant. A three-storey high atrium bar serves British cocktails with an emphasis on gin and tea. On the 32nd floor is Oblix, run by the people behind Zuma and Roka.

Dominique Ansel bakery – aka the home of the Cronut – has finally opened in London, and people are losing their shit. In case you’ve spent the last three years living under a rock, the Cronut is a croissant-doughnut hybrid created and cannily trademarked by master French pastry chef Monsieur Ansel in 2013, before swiftly becoming the most virally talked-about sweet treat in history. At the flagship New York bakery, they advise queuing before 7.30am and on launch day in London they sold out in minutes. Twelve days later, I arrive, sweating, at precisely 8.05, just after the doors open. Happily, on that particular Tuesday, there was no queue and they were expecting to sell them till noon. And does the Cronut live up to the hype? Incredibly, it does. Glazed on top, sugared and filled with soft cream, this miracle of pastry engineering somehow combines the flaky buttery layers of a croissant with the sticky gooeyness of a doughnut. The result is pure dessert decadence – plus a sugar rush so hard you’ll need a lie down. Luckily, there’s plenty of plush banquette seating to rest your throbbing head on at this swish Belgravia bakery. And a smorgasbord of delights winging their way out of the slick open kitchen to perk you right up again. Because Dominique Ansel is not just about the Cronuts, oh no. If you don’t want to stray too far from the doughnut family, try the ‘DKA’, a caramelised deep-fried croissant that’s actually overtaken Cronut sales in the US. Another must-have is the W

The buzz is as important as the food at Jacob Kenedy and Victor Hugo’s enduringly popular Soho restaurant. Dine at the bar and you’re in for a fun night, or afternoon – especially if you’re by the window. It’s the perfect perch from which to watch favourite actresses swan into the clamorous and less atmospheric rear dining room. The menu is a slightly confusing mix of small and large plates to share and, amid the noise, it can be unclear what you think you’ve ordered and at what point it might arrive. Staff reassuringly affirm, ‘It’s sooo good,’ to virtually everything you suggest – and sometimes they’re right. We have fond memories of buttery brown shrimp on soft, silky white polenta (the Venetian preference), and a deep-fried mix of calamari, soft-shell crab and lemon. The radish, celeriac, pomegranate and pecorino salad with truffle dressing is a much-imitated Bocca di Lupo signature – far better, we found, than the spartan raw fennel salad. The brioche in our gelati dessert was also too dry to thrill, irrespective of the quality of the own-made ices. To drink, there’s an enticing selection of cocktails and an impressive all-Italian wine list, but it isn’t as fairly priced as the hype suggests.  

Artusi can be credited with being the place that made pasta trendy again. It may be hard to believe, but back in the noughties, you only ate pasta if you were a tourist, a student, a student tourist or occasionally an ageing Italian businessman (RIP Latium: I’ll always remember your fish ravioli). Then, in 2014, came Artusi. A minimalist dining room, serving a daily changing blackboard menu of artisanal pasta (plus equally excellent grills and salads). Since then, other players – most notably Padella, Pastaio, Lina Stores and Bancone – have joined the pasta party, while Italian restaurants across the capital have dialled up their carb count. As for Artusi, it’s completely unchanged, in the very best way: friendly staff, a chilled-out crowd, pared-back interiors (school chairs, white walls) and terrific cooking. On a recent visit, we were dazzled by the cavatelli (humble twists of no-egg semolina-based pasta), strung through with pancetta and peas, then a bowl of perfectly al dente ravioli stuffed with asparagus and trout. Away from the carbs, a plate of cured bream with grapefruit, shaved fennel and dill was every bit as special. But still, you’re here for the pasta. Got it?

Head to the first floor of this East End trendsetter for the light, white restaurant and big oval bar (the Manchichi, where walk-ins can eat and good cocktails are mixed). Although the hipster count is high, the welcome and service are friendly, and there’s a level of professionalism here that’s missing from many local restaurants. The kitchen is capable of highs – duck confit with puy lentils and mushrooms was a stellar version – but a steady B-plus is more usual. Pricing is variable too – the generous prix fixe costs £17.50 for three good-sized courses, while a tiny portion of cured salmon salad with beetroot and horseradish remoulade was £14 (we can’t imagine what the £8 size looks like). The menu (and short wine list) is more French-leaning than truly Gallic: a cheeseburger with pancetta and caramelised onions sits alongside onglet with chips and béarnaise sauce, and treacle tart with clotted cream next to crème brûlée. A popular weekend brunch adds the likes of (US-style) pancakes with bacon and maple syrup to the mix. Less welcome at brunch are the 90-minute dining slots, and the tables set uncomfortably close to the piano. Overall, it's a reliable but fun restaurant that hasn’t become complacent.  

‘Come back to my place’, shouted my Uber driver. ‘We’ll look after you!’ This exchange, back in May, was more innocent than it sounds. Having found out that I was half Sri Lankan (upon which he immediately high-fived me, causing the car to lurch thrillingly to one side), my Colombo-born taxi driver was now trying to solve my personal problems, namely how long it had been since I’d last had a decent hopper.  These bowl-shaped savoury crepes, you see, are technically a breakfast item. So attempting to order them in a traditional Sri Lankan restaurant at the ‘wrong time’ is typically met by a baffled expression. Hence his offer to drive us to his place in Hendon, where his wife would cook. If I weren’t already running late, I might just have said yes. (And by the way: inviting a total stranger to your house for food is completely normal behaviour in Sri Lanka). But now I wouldn’t have to. The Sethis, who are basically Midases of the restaurant world (Gymkhana, Bubbledogs and Bao are just three of their restaurants), have only gone and opened a Sri Lankan restaurant, specialising in…well, you know.  And it is an absolute joy. As you might expect from a no-bookings joint in Soho, it’s small but stylish, effortlessly mixing old and new. Exposed brick meets wood panelling; pretty patterned tiles meet carved-wood devil masks. The menu, likewise, gives traditional Sri Lankan street food a fashionable lift. Slender breaded and deep-fried mutton rolls came with a ginger, garlic and chil

More than a decade after it started wowing London’s big spenders with its classy Cantonese cooking, this Michelin-starred trendsetter remains a benchmark against which all high-end Chinese restaurants should be judged. The basement’s stylish interior (all dark wood lattice screens and moody lighting) still attracts the kind of beautiful people who might suppress their appetites – though there was little evidence of restraint on our midweek night visit. Plate after plate landed on tables around us, including signature dishes such as silver cod roasted in champagne, and jasmine tea-smoked organic pork ribs. We started with the dim sum platter, a basket of superbly crafted dumplings. The pastry was perfect in give and texture, just elastic enough to encase generous bites of flavour-packed meat and seafood. Sweet and sour Duke of Berkshire pork with pomegranate was equally good, the melting tenderness of top-quality meat turning the clichéd staple into a luxury – Chinese takeaways should weep with shame. Drinks run from cocktails via high-priced wines to specialist teas. The original Hakkasan that spawned a global empire (including a newer branch in Mayfair) retains all its appeal: cool enough to be seen in, yet authentic enough to dash pretension.  

Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver’s restaurant – now the heart of a mini-empire with branch, bakery and wine dealership – has been praised to the skies for reacquainting the British with the full possibilities of native produce, and especially anything gutsy and offal-ish. Perhaps as influential, however, has been its almost defiantly casual style: a Michelin-starred restaurant for people who run from the very idea. The mezzanine dining room in the former Smithfield smokehouse has bare white walls, battered floorboards and tables lined up canteen-style; the downstairs bar, with superb snacks, is equally basic. The staff are able to chat without allowing anything to go off-track. St John’s cooking is famously full-on, but also sophisticated, concocting flavours that are delicate as well as rich, such as cuttlefish and onions was extraordinary, arriving in a supremely deep-flavoured ink-based sauce with a hint of mint, or perfectly cooked tongue served with fantastic horseradish. This is powerful cooking, so if you go for a full dinner, including the great neo-traditional puds, leave time for digestion. Wines – all French, many under St John’s own label, are on the pricey side, but you can also order good beers from the attached bar, which many diners prefer for its more casual vibe and reasonable prices.

Elegant, bright and visually luxuriant, this big-money reboot of the Lanesborough’s flagship dining room (formerly Apsleys) is all bas-reliefs and dangling chandeliers beneath a domed glass ceiling – a luxe backdrop for food with serious culinary gravitas. The kitchen is headed up by Darcio Henriques who brings a modern-European accent to British produce in dishes ranging from blanched green asparagus with mimosa egg, oscietra caviar and crème fraîche to roasted Dover sole accompanied by sautéed spring onions, smoked tomatoes, cockles and garlicky parsley butter. Other crowd-pulling attractions include sedate afternoon teas and a tempting line-up of vintage cognacs in the adjoining Library Bar.

The neon sign outside reads ‘sex shop’; the mannequin in the entrance wears a PVC gimp suit. But the real excitement begins when you descend the stairs into the bowels of this nightclub-like restaurant. It’s so dark and loud you’ll need a moment to adjust (the light bulbs have been blacked out). By comparison, the homely Mexican cooking can feel run-of-the-mill, though effort is put into presentation. On our visit, soft flour tacos with a tender beef filling arrived beautifully arranged on a specially designed wooden board; a crunchy cheese and roasted tomato quesadilla was served ‘open’; pinto beans with a spicy chorizo kick came in a dinky glazed bowl. The real highlight was the dish least concerned with its own looks: a rich lamb shank in intensely dark juices. Seafood cazuela (a one-pot dish like a wet paella), containing clams, squid, prawns and mussels, was creamy, tangy and perfectly fine, though not especially memorable. Factor-in the small portions and two-hour table limits (though you can decamp to the bar), and you might wonder what the fuss is all about. But that would be missing the point. You come here to see and be seen, and for a thrilling atmosphere and exceptionally friendly service. A must-try. La Bodega Negra also have a cafe round the other side (entrance on Moor St).