MiMi Mei Fair

Another Chinese fine dining in Mayfair

Apple wood roasted Peking duck

MiMi Mei Fair is perhaps one of the biggest Chinese openings in London of 2021, founded by Samyukta Nair whose family is behind one of the luxurious hotel and restaurant empires called Leela. The executive chef Peter Ho at MiMi has a really strong CV, with senior positions held at the likes of Hakkasan and HKK. Both his front-of-house and chef team also has a number of ex Hakkasan staff so he has a strong team surrounding him. The food offering has a prime focus on Cantonese cuisine, with some Southeast Asian elements in the mix. There is a dim sum menu as well a more standard ALC menu with about 40 dishes ranging from starters, mains, and sides.

The Sea, The Sea Hackney

Creative seafood tasting counter dining style

Langoustine and spiny lobster cake

Counter dining has somewhat become a hot trend in London lately, with many new counter dining concepts popping up, and mostly toward the high-end level, such as Behind and Evelyns Table. The Sea, The Sea is the latest joining the counter dining fun, with an ex Viajante chef, the talented Leo Carreira running the show. The 12 seat restaurant in Hackney is all about seafood as you could pick that out from the name. The restaurant even has its own seafood tanks to store live seafood and a drying room for fish aging. It offers a 10-course tasting menu, serving creative seafood dishes with a strong influence from Japan.

The Seafood Bar Soho

Work in progress

Cold seafood platter

The Seafood Bar is a brand new seafood concept restaurant from a successful seafood chain operator from Holland which has the same name. I have eaten at the original Seafood bar in Amsterdam just before Covid and it was really enjoyable, it was simple seafood done properly, grilled to the perfection level with a bang on seasoning. So my expectation for the London launch was high. My only question was that have they changed the sourcing of seafood? While London looked similar to the one in Amsterdam, ingredients could play a big part in impacting the final product.

Kitchen Table

 3 stars in the making?

Aged pigeon and cherry

Kitchen Table is easily the best 2 Michelin stars restaurant in London, and for me always a good candidate to push to the 3 stars status. Having eaten there a few times, I always found from the strength to strength, the restaurant kept on improving, and is great to see chef-patron James has such passion and hunger to progress to go as far as possible. Since Covid, a major change happened, with the restaurant taken a massive revamp, taken over the sister restaurant space Bubbledogs and switched up to become a bar area, for diners to enjoy canapes and petit four. The price also had a big change, switched from a fixed £150 tasting menu to £250, a crazy change and has become the most expensive Michelin starred restaurant in the UK! Does it warrant the price?

Park Chinois

 Chinese banquet-style delight

Steamed king crab in aged rice wine and rice noodles

Back again at the wonderful fine dining Chinese restaurant Park Chinois in Mayfair, serving classy Chinese cuisine using the finest ingredients. I have eaten there a few times and worked my way to try most of the items on the menu, I really enjoy how the restaurant based its cooking in the traditional Chinese manner, but with a touch of modern twist ever so slightly to create something truly special. For my lucky 13th visit, I have given the kitchen the freedom to come up with an omakase treatment, serving a blind tasting Chinese banquet-style menu, mixing in the restaurant's signature dishes, as well as some off the menu goodies.

Holborn Dining Room

How a great British dining room should be

Grilled prawns with garlic oil

Located inside the luxury Rosewood hotel, Holborn Dining room is a modern British restaurant which is known for its pie-making, with chef Calum Frankin overseeing the operation, the restaurant even has a pie room which works both as a pie-making kitchen, as well as acting as a private dining room in the evening. You can sample the infamous pie either as a takeaway in the daytime, or have it on site. I have eaten its pork pie in my first visit, and I ask keen to try the good old-fashioned chicken pie on my visit. Besides pies, the menu of the restaurant is your typical modern British hotel offering, with salad, steak, fish and burger, etc.