Somewhere you should eat… Reform Social & Grill, Marylebone

Hugh Wright — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:00:20 +0000

About three or four years ago, restaurants offering robust, butch British fare in clubby surroundings (gentlemen’s rather than night) were the height of fashion, Dean Street Townhouse being the first and I would still argue the best of the bunch. It was a fashion I was very happy with, this being exactly the kind of food I like to eat and the kind of place I like to eat it in.

Fashions change however, with each new restaurant opening now seemingly contending to be more niche and novel than the last, so just as I was thinking we’d all moved on to places serving only hot dogs and champagne or authentic pork-bone ramen, it came as a not-unpleasant surprise to hear about somewhere as resolutely – one might say wilfully – old-school as Reform Social & Grill.

Located in the Mandeville Hotel in Marylebone, Reform consists of a bar area (the Social) serving some pretty spot-on cocktails – they got my vodka Martini exactly right – and the Grill, a large room which with its bare-wood floors, dark Edwardian colour palette and studded leather banquettes and booths is attractive but almost oppressively masculine. On the night Alyn and I visited we were the only diners for almost the entire evening, word having clearly not yet spread that Marylebone, an area well-served for high-end eating establishments but less so for good everyday options, now has exactly that…

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Somewhere you should eat… Ora

Hugh Wright — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 10:00:23 +0000

Location, location, location are, as every estate agent and Channel 4 property show addict knows, the three critical factors in determining the desirability of a property. The same cannot be said for restaurants, which can thrive in the oddest places – both under and atop multi-storey car-parks, for example – yet fail in seemingly sure-fire sites.

Ora is a fantastic smart Thai restaurant cursed with an abysmal location (location, location). Little Portland Street is an alleyway in the unlovely area north of Oxford Street that property developers have tried unsuccessfully for years to rebrand as Noho. The previous occupant of this site was Annex 3, the short-lived West End off-shoot of Shoreditch favourite Les Trois Garcons.

Ora’s owners are clearly unperturbed that the eponymous three boys, with their pedigree, couldn’t make a go of it here. Money has been spent to good effect on giving the long, large dining room and adjoining cocktail lounge a sleek, dark, Christian Liaigre-ish makeover, and an elegant interlocking design rather like a curvy Union Jack runs across staff t-shirts, embroidered leather place-mats and menus. There’s confidence as well as incense in the air….

To read the rest, click here to visit Hugh Wright’s blog twelvepointfivepercent.com

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Somewhere you should eat… Reform Social & Grill, Marylebone

Somewhere you should eat… Ora