We just published my review of Impala after a handful of visits over the past few months. I won’t get into it here, but one of the things that I love most about it is how flexible it is for the organisationally challenged. It doesn’t just take walk-ins, but is partly built for them. I’m also reminded of a couple of cracking meals I had at Tempo at the beginning of the year and places like Yuki Bar which was well ahead of this curve.

Lots of it is linked to having a good time, we agreed. But I also think it allows people to go out somewhere scene-y, have a drink with a mate, and eat a little something that’s excellent, without feeling bound to shelling out lots. That said, when I bed in at a good bar, it’s rarely pretty for my bank account.—Jake Missing

The following scene reports were taken directly from our team Slack channel #where-we-been. This channel is an in-the-moment take from our writers after visiting a restaurant. It is updated daily. Light editing has been made for comprehension and/or libel.

Bar Lina’s Four-gronis

I love her. All painted a deep, dark scarlet red, lights low, a soothing buzz about it. Basically like being back in the womb, just with alcohol and la dolce vita snackies. Four Negronis available and after a sweet chat with the world’s politest bartender, we landed on my Negroni reading—the classic Mamma Mia. You get complimentary snacks (it’s a toastie stitch with Italian ham!). It’s got the feel of a best bars contender. Negroni was a classic done 10/10 and my dad’s take on the amaretto sour (“it’s like a New York cheesecake!!!” X 100) actually had this complex, fruity subtle tea flavour that I really liked even though sours are normally not my lane. Sexy, classy, teeny tiny whiff of arrogance (compliment).—Heidi Lauth Beasley

The Irrepressible Hype Of Crisp Pizza

Overheard a lady ask the FOH when the next available table was and he said 7 weeks with a very straight face. It’s so fun down there. The calzone has improved drastically. It’s now like the Hammersmith location’s one. They’ve also got a new ‘Portnoy’ pizza which is half New Haven, half cheese bar pie. The grandma vecna was also excellent. Oh and they have a caesar salad on the menu! She was covered in way too much parmesan which I loved. Got the cookie dessert, which I finished every last bite of. That Happy Endings soft serve is perfect and the hundreds and thousands made me wish it was my birthday.—Rianne Shlebak

Impala’s Electric Feeling

I loved it solo at the counter and can’t wait to book again in a group. The room just felt electric and there was such a natural flow from the front area into the spacious back bit. Everything was seamless from a service POV. They’ve really fine-tuned it to a tee. Even little things like my napkin dropped and I picked it up, but then a minute later, my server came and gave me a new one. The shiso leaf stuffed with crab kibbeh was so good I ordered another round. Had to take home any leftover aish baladi because I couldn’t bear to leave behind any. Eaten the next day with some leftover dips from Nandine—an elite over-the-sink bite.—Daisy Meager

Guess The Bathroom

Do you know what bog this is? Guesses welcomed and encouraged in the comments.

What We’re Excited About

A ridiculous trend observation but I’m enjoying the rich, warm brown paint in the loos of buzzy ‘it’ places like Bar Etna and Impala—Heidi

As if it couldn’t get much better for north Londoners, my favourite post-Arsenal pint has just installed air con. Thank you The Compton Arms—Jake

Banquet 88, a new dim sum spot from the guys behind Tao Tao Ju—Emily

Not excited, but I am pouring one out for Spaghetti House—Daisy

That’s A Nice Touch

The delirious and unbridled joy across Islington has been something to witness, and also something to avoid if you’re not an Arsenal fan. I am. And I appreciate Half Cut Market’s £5 deal on chilled red in celebration, as well as my beloved Trullo’s glowing makeover, but The Draper’s Arms, an always-classy establishment, topped everything with this.—Jake

A singular juicy tidbit this week. It’s regarding an online beef emerging between two London temaki restaurants and comes courtesy of Heidi’s unparalleled investigative work.

Kumori, a recent addition to the Hit List, has been a welcome Soho opening as London’s appreciation for Japanese hand rolls swells. But, not everyone is enthused.

On Google Reviews there is one particularly effusive and negative piece of feedback that stands out. It uses strong words like ‘mediocre’, ‘unacceptable’, and ‘dishonest’ in the thorough 1-star review. Mark, it’s safe to say, did not enjoy his experience. The catch? He’s the executive chef of soon-to-open Temaki in Mayfair.

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As ever, thank you for perusing Dinner Debrief. Have a lovely weekend and if you’re Arsenal fan, enjoy the celebrations.

For our regular newsletter, head over here. Or to see the restaurants we’ve been reviewing most recently, check our Instagram and TikTok.

Today we cover a few bases. These include, but are not limited to: burgeoning summer scenes, a beautiful chequerboard toilet, and a national newspaper restaurant critic being greeted like a 17th-century French aristocrat who has sway at the gallows. We’ll get into that later. Or, maybe Google ‘baisemain’ now to prepare.

I’ve had some interesting experiences during recent meals too. At Auguste, servers crouched and squeezed onto tables like an overfamiliar stranger in the smoking area, which I always find funny (and a little awkward). I was also met with some piercing eye contact and tender service at a new pub in Newington Green.

Although we don’t take PR invites, and do show up under pseudonyms, sometimes these things happen. Even regular restaurant-goers get fawned over and we’re mostly setting Tiella reservation reminders just like everyone else.

So with that and some vaguely salacious spotting out of the way, let’s get on with it.—Jake Missing

The following scene reports were taken directly from our team Slack channel #where-we-been. This channel is an in-the-moment take from our writers after visiting a restaurant. It is updated daily. Light editing has been made for comprehension and/or libel.

You’re Hot, Eat Pizza Says Weezie’s

Potentially the most fun I’ve ever had? The terrace is an absolute scene and god bless us Londoners that can turn 14 degrees, a wind warning, benches, pizza, and spicy margs into A Moment on a Wednesday night. 55 minutes later, the Keeper Of The iPad who had taken a shine to us (not because she knew who we were—we were radiating desperation and Sinéad could charm a brick) told us two girls hadn’t shown up and to take the counter! The house orange wine is very easy drinking. There is also pizza (good, fine, stable) and I do believe piped ricotta to be gorgeous. We left at closing. Love waking up to a pizza box that reads “you’re hot, eat pizza”.—Heidi Lauth-Beasley

Sensual Service At The Latimer

The Spiteris were clearly born to do this. And by ‘this’ I mean pour red wine without looking while complimenting you. At the moment the room feels full of their friends. I also spotted [REDACTED BIG NEWSPAPER CRITIC] looking very stern, holding a menu very close to her face (it is a normal font size), and having her hand kissed by a stranger. It was sunny and the garden out front was clearly the place to be. I don’t know if it was just because it was so glorious, but sitting in the dining room towards the back sort of felt like you weren’t in the fun group. I do want to go back for the burger.—Sinéad Cranna

Auguste Is Primed For Silly Season

Spectacularly London Fields. There were about 58 dishevelled friends outside sipping Negronis and chainsmoking. Inside it’s Papi but with some new Goodbye Horses-vibe art. Lots of candles, lots of girlies, lots of men who look like Gallagher offspring or French detectives from the 1930s. The space is almost entirely dysfunctional, one-in-one-out, dishes coming at random times. It got very smoky at one point too. But also some of the food is quite good? The homemade ciabatta and a stracciatella salad thing were great. Lots of people retired outside for more drinks and cigs after finishing and honestly, neither the food or experience were perfect, but it was a good time. Everything under £20 too.—Jake

Guess The Bathroom

Do you know what bog this is? Guesses welcomed and encouraged in the comments.

What We’re Excited About

Bar Etna’s 12:30am closing time on Fridays and Saturdays. Word is it’s pizza by the slice after 10pm. I foresee stumbling to Cadet and back, on loop.—Jake

Toad Bakery is opening in Deptford next month! —Emily Hai

The mont blanc is here for summer and she is RUNNING. Spotted today at Joe Blake’s so imo we are travelling up the zeitgeist towards normie. —Heidi

Simorgh, the new spot from the Persepolis people is open! —Daisy Meager

That’s A Nice Touch

Violet put a little piece of tape around the straw of my iced coffee and wrote happy birthday. —Heidi

National newspaper critics aside, Sinéad also spotted Bel Powley of The Diary Of A Teenage Girl fame having brunch at Burnt in Hackney. The order? A chicken club.

Juicy news, but not the kind we like: alphonso mangoes are in short supply due to low harvest. There’s more information here.

Swifties look away now. Deuxmoi posted that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had dinner with Robert Pattinson and Suki Waterhouse at… Lucky Cat. They made up for this error in judgement by being seen at Gymkhana too.

As first reported on London Centric and Vittles, Queensway Market is under serious threat of closing with the future of Normah’s and other vendors unknown. Find the petition against here.

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Thanks for reading Dinner Debrief. We’ll be back with more shameless spotting from around restaurants in London and, hopefully, a pleasant hangover after a night at Bar Etna.

For our regular newsletter, head over here. Or to see the restaurants we’ve been reviewing most recently, check our Instagram and TikTok.

Last week we put out a mainly silly, partly useful video measuring the temperature of a few of London’s most famous gin martinis. We’ve had a strong response. It turns out there are lots of ‘tini perverts out there, including yours truly. At one point during this research, a bow-tied server from Rules looked at me with both bewilderment and concern as I dipped a Thermapen into a dry gin martini with a twist. I do not blame him.

All of which is to say, London has reached peak martini-fication. The question is, why will nobody ever switch my glass to a frosty new one? —Jake Missing

Scene Reports

The following scene reports were taken directly from Slack, where we share daily, in-the-moment takes from our previous 24 hours of dining. Light editing has been made for comprehension and/or libel.

80s Disco Inferno At Maza

The Greek salad was really something and those meatballs... my my. Sadly they forgot the dolmades and had some overly charred octopus and capers. But the baklava and pistachio ice cream sandwich was like a Snickers ice cream on steroids. Also are mirrored toilets now a thing?! Loved the 80s Disco Inferno, All Night Long, Lost In Music soundtrack. Definitely felt like a big after-work crowd with a few big tables of colleagues. Was buzzing at 7:30pm. —Daisy Meager

Edami Is A Delightful Brunch Spot

A very cute Lebanese bakery down a little alley in Dalston (where Papo’s Bagels used to live). It’s vibey in the sun, good amount of seating inside + some stools outside. Menu is short. Lahm b a’ajeen was the standout—not to be confused with the also good, but not as great lahm b a’ajeen with pomegranate molasses. I liked the za’atar and cheese, although it could have done with a bit more za’atar. But it went nicely with the vegetable plate and labneh dip. Also the bread that came with the dip was very good. Feel like this will become rammed v soon. —Rianne Shlebak

Making Glaswegian Friends At Brett

An extremely lovely place to celebrate an occasion, get a bit pissed, chat with strangers at the counter, and have some extremely good beef tartare. I think elsewhere if I sat next to a fitness coach and police officer husband and wife (they met on Tinder, fyi), I would fear the worst, but in Glasgow everyone chats and is genuinely friendly. The chef’s menu is kind of like casual fine dining. It started well with this smoky olive oil and rosemary foliage martini, and everything afterwards was just lovely. —Jake

Guess The Bill

Do you know what restaurant this is? Guesses welcomed and encouraged in the comments.

What We’re Excited About

All Kaps Pizza returns, in a permanent home. —Sinéad Cranna

The Jolene x Aries collaboration. It’s beautiful when a meme comes to life. —Jake

The negron--aissance. London’s current Italophilia is setting the stage for less performative sbagliatos, and more returns to the three-part classic. See Burro’s £7.50 offering. —Heidi Lauth Beasley

That’s A Nice Touch

Three Mustards at Simpson’s in the Strand

The devil is in the detail at Simpson’s in the Strand and I’ve enjoyed every meal I’ve had there, while also remembering almost nothing about what I’ve eaten. It’s the little things, like the buttonhole napkins that Panayiota Soutis wrote about last month on The Goal is to Eat, or the trio of mustards that are dolloped onto your plate of roast beef (if you so wish) that linger in the memory. I find restaurants to be historically stingy when it comes to condiments, and this horseradish cream was nice and punchy.—Jake

Digestifs

OCR’s inimitable martini spotted in Dua’s latest carousel. Pretty sure that’s a large piece of meat from Mountain too. Also spotted: Stormzy post-meal at Belly Bistro, one of our favourite restaurants in London.

As we spoke to about last week, Ellie’s in Dalston has installed custom-built martini holders in its toilets. The bog-tini era is now.

Sharon Osborne has been barred from Mascara Bar in Stoke Newington because fearless landlady Maggie “doesn’t like her”.

Elsewhere, after Jake saw Joan Collins at Simpson’s in the Strand, she was apparently back with Liz Hurley and… Piers Morgan.

Vincenzo’s is finally opening its downstairs. Full pies only.

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That’s all for our inaugural Dinner Debrief. We’ll be back soon, after visiting the 23 new regional Italian restaurants that have opened in the interim. If there’s a dinner, scene, or dish we should be debriefing, do shout in the comments. Until next time.

For our regular newsletter, head over here. Or to see the restaurants we’ve been reviewing most recently, check our Instagram and TikTok.

A place to read, discuss, and digest the weird world of being a restaurant critic in London.

It’s an uncensored look into what life eating out most evenings is like, at least until Louis Theroux makes a tell-all documentary on Eating With Tod.

What’s getting debriefed, exactly?

Dinner, second dinner, and everything in between. Be it midweek pierogis at Ognisko or a solo plate of roast meats at Wong Kei. The six of us at Infatuation London (Daisy, Jake, Heidi, Rianne, Sinéad, and Emily) are self-diagnosed restaurant people, and we know there are lots more of you out there who want every single detail. IBS issues aside, of course.

So you’re greedy and obsessed with cutlery?

Yes and yes. We’re all out at restaurants multiple times a week. This is a place to talk about the silly and weird things we see, read about, and experience. Be that Emily Ratajkowski sipping martinis at The Dover, Rod Stewart pounding Guinness in Crouch End, or the toddler Rianne met during a £300 omakase dinner.

Also, what is Infatuation?

We make restaurant recommendations on the internet, and have been doing so in various forms and destinations since 2009. We’re Londoners who dine out anonymously and often, pay our own way, and strive to be as honest and relatable as possible. We also aren’t shy about calling a popular restaurant a gimmicky waste of time. We love to solve your nichest dining dilemmas, and write restaurant reviews and guides to do just that.

Is this going to be, like, another list!?

Not exactly. As mentioned, we do publish a lot of guides on the Infatuation. But, our Dinner Debriefs are more like the group chat (and work Slack) mixed with surprisingly pleasant conversation with a stranger in a pub.

Thanks for reading along,

Daisy, Jake, Heidi, Rianne, Sinéad, and Emily

For our regular newsletter, head over here. Or to see the restaurants we’ve been reviewing most recently, check our Instagram and TikTok.