Charles Campion

Charles Campion's Blog at The Evening Standard:

The one hundredth posting… and a new edition of the guide
(September 9, 2008, 7:38am)

Hooray! There’s something magical about coincidences; this is posting number 100 on this blog and tomorrow is publication day for the 2009 edition of my restaurant guide. This year the guide is bigger than ever before (over 400 restaurants –...

Ever the optimists - Mien Tay
(August 31, 2008, 6:06pm)

Vietnamese restaurateurs seem to have a much more pragmatic approach to their business than their European counterparts. If a Vietnamese restaurant starts to do badly, it will be sold, given a slap of paint and re-opened in a matter of...

A smiling Giaconda
(August 25, 2008, 8:08pm)

It is only to be expected, but whenever there is the slightest whiff of Australian provenance about any new restaurant you can expect Terry Durack to be first across the threshold and the Giaconda Dining Room was no exception to...

A round of applause for The Modern Pantry
(August 19, 2008, 6:41pm)

If you are adverse to boasting you could probably skip this paragraph and go straight to the bit about Anna Hansen’s new restaurant, but for the rest of my loyal readers here’s a heads-up about Eating with the Enemy. This...

Baozi Inn – Sichuan street food, no frills
(August 11, 2008, 8:41am)

For the foodie there could be no more telling pedigree… the Baozi Inn is the latest venture by those wonderful people who brought you Bar Shu and all those splendid palate-trampling dishes super-charged with chilli and Sichuan pepper. At Bar...

Fusion worse confounded - Pomegranate
(August 4, 2008, 11:38am)

It has much the same effect on me as a red rag flapped at a grumpy bull, the word is “fusion” and was a there ever such an abused array of syllables. A matter of weeks ago a restaurant called...

The Pantechnicon Rooms - the beginning of a whole new genre?
(July 29, 2008, 10:03am)

Writers and commentators tend to pay particular attention to the fringes of the restaurant business. Pondering whether such and such a place is more of a gastropub than a restaurant… whether a new 150 seater is best classified as a...

Sketch - playing to the Gallery
(July 21, 2008, 8:30am)

“Momo” Mazouz has a glint in his eye. He stalks around Sketch’s Gallery restaurant fretting about the service, worrying about the food and taking a personal interest in each and every party throughout the building. Where he gets the energy...

Shameless self-promotion
(July 17, 2008, 11:42am)

View this photo

The Fish House - top wallies
(July 14, 2008, 5:51am)

Even now, in top-secret offices at a hidden location, planners, designers and marketeers are burning midnight oil as they seek the Holy Grail for their masters the mid-range restaurant companies. What they are all looking for is a modern fish...