Resto 26 La Patagonia, Camden
Credit to the guy on the grill who we could see toiling away at the back of the room - he did the beef to perfection.

Credit to the guy on the grill who we could see toiling away at the back of the room - he did the beef to perfection.
It almost brought a tear to the eye to be among a happy crowd of diners in one of the best rooms in London.
It feels like a long time ago that we went to Santoré so my failing memory means that this post will be brief. After a festive jar in the excellent Shakespeare’s Head we were back to Exmouth Market for nosh. Indian not being to my wife’s taste we compromised with Italian. Santoré does the standard…
I now found that darts makes me hungry so we headed northwards in search of curry. But it being Monday a lot of places were shut (I'm guessing some of them were also just shut full stop) so by the time we were nearly at Warren Street James pointed out that the best restaurant when you were hungry was the one you were eating food in.++++ Wise advice and we chose to eat at Nazuki Garden based on its being the restaurant we could see when we had that discussion.
I was brained out and hungersome.
After the seeing the excellent Spilliaerts exhibition at the RA I'd booked Zédel to see how one of the more up-market groups was handling the Covid thing. And eat some good grub too, natch.
Flaming the salmon involved a geezer nailing a whole side of salmon to a plank before donning a fire-retardant suit and helmet and holding said plank to a charcoal-fed furnace.
If you want to learn to eat classic French food in style there are few places better to start than Le Train Bleu.
The Big C having (temporarily?) terminated restaurant going as a social activity I'll be lucky to get beyond number six this side of autumn. And unlikely to have the funds to dine out in style the other. So what is a restaurant reviewer to do?
Take a Proustian turn of course. The great man lay in his cork-lined room and let his mind do the travelling through time and space. And I intend to follow his lead. Though not in every detail you'll be glad to know, I have neither the skill nor the inclination to imitate Proust's description of the Duchesse de Guermantes' dinner over 150 pages.
Journey with me through restaurants remembered, people remembered, places remembered.
At Bankside for the Wanamaker production of Swive it was an improbable first time at the Swan for us for the first resto of 2020. We were nearly the first arrivals, save for a couple by the window. So it was a bit of a surprise to be seated at a table right next to…