As the year winds down, here are the stories that were the most popular reads on Hot Dinners in 2022...
1 - KFC launched a pub (briefly)
While the country geared up for the controversial Qatar tournament, the single biggest story on Hot Dinners in 2022 was the news that if you weren’t going to Doha (and why would you want to?) you could watch the matches in way more comfort in the Colonel’s very own pub in London. It even came with buttons to press for fried chicken to be delivered to your table along with your pints.
2 - Bacchanalia arrives in Mayfair, and keeps things low key
Was Richard Caring’s new Mayfair opening going to be the one that jumped the shark for the Caprice Holdings restaurant group? Was there really an appetite for a restaurant where the staff dressed in togas and Damien Hirst unicorns galloped across the ceiling? The answer seemed to be somewhere in between yes and hell no. You all wanted to know about it, but maybe wanted someone else to go in first and check it out.
3 - The Korean Toast pop-up is VERY popular
With over 5m subscribers, anything that YouTubers Korean Englishman did was going to be big. So it was an easy prediction that their Korean toast popup in King’s Cross would be a hit. Queues snaked across Granary Square for months with their legions of fans mad to try a kimchi cheese toastie.
4 - Peggy Jean parks by the canal at Richmond
We’ll tell you one thing that really floated your boat in 2022, the Daisy Green Collection’s new restaurant on a barge. Parked on the riverside at Richmond, its lurid pink parasol strewn deck deputed just before the hottest summer on record and Londoners couldn’t get enough of it.
5 - Cafe Dior takes gingerbread to a new level
The closest we got to checking out Dior’s gingerbread-themed cafe at Harrods was, like most people, peering in from the wrong side of a red rope. When news broke of the department store’s festive collaboration with the fashion house, tickets were sold out in minutes.
6 - Mount St. Restaurant and the Audley pub open (and get a visit from The King)
To know how a restaurant over a pub in Mayfair ended up hosting the King and Queen on their first public restaurant outing in their new royal roles, you need to know more about who’s behind The Audley and Mount St Restaurant. Which is where our news story came in.
7 - Battersea Power Station opens with lots of new places to eat and drink
If you’ve lived in London for any decent length of time, you might have thought that no one would ever get around to doing up the Battersea Power Station. But 2022 was the year that the iconic riverside building was finally unveiled in all its new shopping and dining glory and our guide on where to eat there did correspondingly well.
8 - The Tamil Prince brings live to a new Islington pub
Islington’s pub scene has played a blinder in 2022, not least with this opening by a couple of ex-Roti King folk. They took over an old boozer in Barnsbury, put on a menu of southern Indian belters - the Channa Bhatura is quite something to behold - and perhaps showed a new way for pubs to stay profitable in these challenging times.
9 - Henry Harris returns with Bouchon Racine
It was Hot Dinners that got the exclusive on what’s surely been one of the biggest openings of the year. Signalling the return of chef Henry Harris to the kitchen, alongside his business partner Dave Strauss, we brought you the news on how this Farringdon pub was going to be the foodie hotspot that you very much needed to know about.
10 - Tim Hortons finally comes to London
Either there are a LOT of Canadian ex-pats in London or the arrival of a new fast food brand in deepest Park Royal held that lure of the new that had you all wanting to try it. Park Royal was the scene for the Canadian burger brand’s first opening in the UK.
More from 2022
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