Kitchen W8, Kensington, London

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

They say you should never judge a book by its cover and I guess that goes for the title too. With the external look of a mid range café, and named after the second smallest room in a house (1930’s house at any rate), Kitchen W8 does not elicit Great Expectations.

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Coal Grill & Bar, Exeter

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Compared to London in the best of times and the worst of times, Exeter city is beautiful, but only within a guillotine blade width of the cathedral. And in this tale of two cities, Exeter is almost uninhabited. But like most of provincial England, the restaurant scenery is so familiar and populous it could be Stockport, or Slough,  Scunthorpe or Staines. Desperately avoiding chain store massacres, I chanced upon Coal, which was bucking the trend on a late summer Tuesday evening, in that trade was brisk and I didn’t recognise the name from the FTSE brands directory.

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