From Kensal Rise to Piccadilly

Saturday, April 25th , 2026

The Ritz is my favourite London fine dining restaurant, and it produced another superb sequence of dishes at my latest visit. Beef Wellington (pictured) was dazzling, and a rhubarb dessert was particularly good, but really the whole meal was just terrific. Add in the charming service and the lovely surroundings and you have a winning formula.

Parlour is a pub in Kensal Rise that I have not been to for quite some time. It has a lot of things in its favour, such as a classically trained chef/owner, and a penchant for reviving retro British dishes. It even smokes its own salmon on a smoker on the roof. However at this visit the head chef was absent and things had slipped. A chicken Kyiv was cooked too long and was rather dried out, and some vegetables were overcooked. This is a shame, as this used to be a regular haunt of mine. Hopefully it was just an off night.