‘Many over-hyped London restaurants left me cold’: Grace Dent’s best restaurants of 2025 | Grace Dent on restaurants
For reasons that may already be apparent, and that are currently playing on BBC One, I have spent much of 2025 watching people cook scallops and souffles in a windowless television location unit in Digbeth, Birmingham.MasterChef, despite being one of the most exhilarating jobs a girl can do, sucked up most of my waking hours this year, and made my free time extra-precious.So the very best restaurants I found this year – those with zinging hospitality and heart-thumpingly good food – became equally extra-crucial.I’m talking about the likes of Tropea in Harborne, just down the road from the TV studio, and where I’ve spent a fair few Saturdays eating butternut squash arancini, fresh tagliolini and whopping great deep-fried salted cannoli.Over in Bristol, meanwhile, two absolute gems revealed themselves on the very same trip: Ragù and Lapin, both in Wapping Wharf and both in repurposed shipping containers, but entirely different creatures.
Lapin I described as a “peculiar, meta, slightly earnest and definitely delicious” slice of France that serves asparagus with sauce gribiche, gnocchi Parisienne and, well, lapin itself whenever local hunters manage to bag some bunnies.Lapin will add caviar to any dish, if you ask for it, they play 80s French pop and serve a mint-green, menthe-over-club-soda diabolo for those French exchange school trip vibes.Ragù, meanwhile, may quite simply be one of the greatest dinners I’ve eaten this decade: crespelle in rich tomato brodo, artichoke fritti and chocolate budino with sour cherries and amaretti – flawless cooking in completely understated surroundings.Largely because of those telly commitments, I made it to Manchester only a couple of times this year, but those visits gleaned Bangkok Diners Club and Winsome, both of which are terrifically good ways to fill your stomach and leave jolly.Bangkok Diners Club, in Ancoats, is a Thai restaurant tucked upstairs at the Edinburgh Castle, an elegantly restored, 19th-century pub where rich, golden beetroot massaman curry is served with decadent chicken-fat rice and where delicate plates of raw bass come with calamansi nam jim and rice bran before a round of fruity rice ice-cream lollies.
Winsome, on the other hand, is a stonkingly good modern British restaurant with a wonderful, warm, devoted crew led by Shaun Moffat, whose food is “a scoop of Fergus Henderson, a nod to Mark Hix, a dash of London’s Quality Chop House and a teeny touch of Toby Carvery”.They serve roast dinners, wild mushrooms with pease pudding and rhubarb jelly with custard.Another fabulous night spent expanding my waistline was at Bellota in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, a Spanish tasting menu experience where seats are limited but well worth the bunfight to get in.Elsewhere, I was bowled over by Juliet in Stroud, where the local boho community of artists and eccentric toffs currently celebrate their high days and holidays.And, just last month, I loved Dave Hart and Polly Pleasence’s new place, Franc, where simple French cooking and a very limited menu are the order of the day: we had world-class duck breast with caramelised endive and a big bowl of fresh chips.
Another great dinner in 2025 involved a trip to the blustery British seaside for hake with orange-y sauce Maltaise at Harry’s in Camber Sands.Back in the capital, however, many over-hyped London restaurants left me cold, though there were the odd moments of greatness.The Ukrainian restaurant Tatar Bunar in Shoreditch, for instance, is fabulous for plump mushroom varenyky and borscht, plus I’d advise you to run, not walk to the new Kudu in Marylebone, London’s prettiest new restaurant this year, for its confit trout braai and the “Kudu kit kat”.Or even just for a loaf of its warm fresh bread with a bowl of obscenely good curry-leaf butter.It would be remiss of me not to remind you about Town in Covent Garden, either, which I still recommend to everyone to solve their dinner-scheduling woes – it’s big, bold, delicious and glamorous; take a date, take a client.
I’m also guilty of harping on about Osteria Angelina, a Japanese-Italian hybrid in Shoreditch, and the wilfully eccentric, mock-historical pleasure palace that is Lilibet’s in Mayfair, which will discombobulate you with its wild, monarchical, faux olde-worldeness, and then delight you with an exemplary Dover sole with Café de Paris butter and piles of profiteroles.Finally, creeping in at the end of the year, there was for fancy Caribbean at 2210 Natty Can Cook in south London – think ackee and saltfish spring rolls and deep-fried apple crumble.Yes, time might have been a bit tight this year for lounging about in restaurants, but I gave it a damned good go and can confirm that the scene out there is roaring.Bring on 2026: the future looks delicious.
The Las Vegas Raiders and the thin line between tanking and incompetence
The Las Vegas Raiders made waves this week by putting its two, and only, stars on injured reserve ahead of the final two games that will decide the 2026 NFL draft order. Tight end Brock Bowers and edge rusher Maxx Crosby were shut down from a consequential battle for the top draft pick against the Giants and a Week 18 game against Kansas City due to nagging knee injuries. Bowers had scored four touchdowns over the past five weeks for a team that doesn’t score many points. Crosby is a human wrecking ball who has amassed 28 tackles for loss this season. He’s the player that causes opponents to lose sleep
The Ashes inspiration, overpreparation and bold tactics: a history of Australia v England two-day Tests | Geoff Lemon
To put in context the surprise that greeted the two-day Boxing Day Test, consider the rarity by arithmetic. The match in Melbourne was Test No 2,615 and the 27th to finish inside two days. You probably don’t need a calculator to see that is roughly 1%.Yet we have had two such matches in this Ashes series, plus another in Australia three years ago. We’ve had half a dozen two-day Tests since 2021
Piastri intrigue, Picklum magic and Gout goes global: reflections on a year of Australian sport | Jack Snape
Australians shone on the global stage in 2025, while there was more myth-making and dynasties born closer to homeAbove it all, the thwack stands out. Over an extraordinary year of Australian sport: of world-beaters and champions of tomorrow; of myth-making performances at the summit of codes; of comebacks, and dynasties come and gone.When all that noise subsides, the sound of Gout Gout’s footfall stays with you. Watch him on television, or on one of his viral highlights, and his thin frame appears to glide across the track. But in person, the audible slap as his spikes meet the track is as loud as his arrival has been in Australian sport
‘I like No 3’: Bethell always looks the part and now has chance to shine in Ashes
Until his ice-cool 40 helped England dodge an Ashes whitewash in front of 90,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday, the most clippable aspect of Jacob Bethell’s tour was probably his performance of YMCA on a dancefloor in Noosa during the team’s much-discussed break.It is a bit poor when sports people have their down time filmed by members of the public and posted online. But at least Bethell, born 25 years after the Village People’s seminal hit was first released, had the wherewithal to get the tricky “C” the right way round. Rob Key’s Gareth Keenan‑like investigation into Noosa can rule out inebriation here.Technique is Bethell’s thing, the reason why this particular 22-year‑old has always played above his age
I was there: Europe’s dramatic Ryder Cup win signed off a strange week
I was out by the practice green late afternoon on the Monday of the Ryder Cup and so was Bryson DeChambeau. He was on his own, signing autographs for the handful of people on the other side of the railings, and there was this one woman leaning over towards him, a bottle blonde, late middle-aged, in a tight white dress.She was only a couple of feet away from him, but she was screaming in his ear like she was trying to reach someone across the far side of the course. “We love you Bryson! Bryson! We love you! We love you for everything you’ve done for the Donald! We love you for everything you’ve done for the Donald!”It was a long, strange week and when I think back on it the golf is entirely overwhelmed by technicolour memories of the weird scenes on the grounds of Bethpage Black and in the surrounding town of Farmingdale.I wish I could say the things I remember best are that approach shot Scottie Scheffler hit from 180 yards at the 10th, the 40ft putt Rory McIlroy made on the 6th or Jon Rahm’s chip-in from the rough at the 8th
Matthew Potts poised to play in fifth Ashes Test after England rule out Gus Atkinson
Matthew Potts is poised to play his first Ashes Test in Sydney after England confirmed that Gus Atkinson has been ruled out of the series finale.Atkinson limped off with a hamstring issue on the second and final day of England’s rollercoaster four-wicket victory in Melbourne and scans undertaken in the past 24 hours have ruled out his further participation.With Jofra Archer and Mark Wood having similarly seen their tours end early, it leaves Potts as the last unused seamer from the original squad of 16. Wood’s knee injury saw Surrey’s Matthew Fisher moved across from the shadow Lions tour after the second Test in Brisbane as cover.Provided Brydon Carse and Josh Tongue recover sufficiently during the seven-day break between Tests – and England continue with Will Jacks as the spin option at No 8 – then the fast-medium Potts in for Atkinson may well be the only change from the XI that prevented the whitewash
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