From Hyde Park to Euston

Saturday, November 25th , 2023

A couple of opposites of the London dining scene this week, from the new and shiny to the old and cheap.

Brooklands is on the top floor of The Peninsula Hotel, a billion-pound extravaganza of a hotel where the phrase “no expense spared” is for once quite accurate. Brooklands has a fine, airy dining room (pictured) with a view over Hyde Park and a former head chef of Bibendum running the kitchen. The food that I tried was genuinely classy, with a superb celeriac “risotto” and a sophisticated apple dessert as two of the highlights.

Diwana Bhel Poori has been around since the 1970s, a simple vegetarian café just by Euston station, serving south Indian snacks. The pricing has always been low and seems especially so in this day and age, yet the dishes are carefully balanced and are genuinely tasty – the bhel poori itself is top notch. You can eat well here for £15 a head, and that is not something that you can say about many restaurants these days