Honest Bao

Some restaurants make you sit up straight the moment the first dish lands — and Man Wah, perched inside the five-star Mandarin Oriental in Central Hong Kong, is exactly that kind of place. When a kitchen has held its Michelin star for over a decade, the food has to be good. Spoiler: it is. Recently renovated Man Wah A superb Ham Sui Gok 🍽️ Food & Drinks This is Cantonese cooking at the top of its game. The jellyfish head is a revelation: wonderfully crunchy, fresh, and seasoned with just a whisper of sesame oil — perfection. The soy chicken is silky and deeply savoury, and the Ham Sui Gok (Fried Glutinous Rice Dumplings) is a showstopper, all crisp-chewy shell and a pork filling that's bang on.  Clay pot abalone The clay pot abalone is cooked beautifully with a sauce that complements rather than smothers, and the fried rice and egg tart are textbook brilliant. Only the stir-fried fish chunks felt a touch bland — fresh, but the quiet one at the table. Jellyfish head in th...

Tom Shepherd's  debut restaurant began with a stroke of luck: in 2019, his father relocated the family jewellery shop to a new Lichfield site with an empty workshop above it. COVID delayed the build, but takeaway boxes during lockdown built a loyal following before doors even opened in 2021. A Michelin star followed just four months later — making Upstairs Staffordshire's first and only Michelin-starred restaurant to this day. 🍽️ Food & Drinks Food here is exactly what you'd hope for from a Michelin kitchen — technically accomplished, well-balanced, and confidently plated. The amuse-bouche was good, though slightly heavy-handed on the salt — a note that recurs a couple of times through the meal and is really the only consistent criticism of the cooking. Presentation throughout is sharp and the flavours generally land where they should. Nice  amuse-bouche and beautifully presented The bread was good, as you'd expect, though the butter that came with it was a tou...

Let's talk about Italian restaurants for a second.  They're everywhere — and there's a reason for that. The food is crowd-pleasing, the concept is universally understood, and crucially, the ingredients are cheap. Flour, water, maybe an egg. That's pasta. Which is why, when a pasta restaurant charges serious money for a modest bowl of it, they'd better make sure that bowl is doing something genuinely special. Bancone, to its credit, mostly does. Holding a Michelin Bib Gourmand since 2019, Bancone has built its reputation on fresh, handmade pasta with a modern Italian twist. Its name translates simply as "counter," a nod to the open kitchen counter dining concept at its heart. Now with four locations across London and a fifth on the way, it's become one of the city's go-to pasta destinations. The question is whether it lives up to it. Signature  silk handkerchiefs 🍽️ Food & Drinks The silk handkerchiefs are the headline act — and rightly so...

There was a time when getting a stool at Barrafina felt like a minor victory.  No reservations, a queue out the door, and a palpable buzz that made the wait feel like part of the experience. Barrafina was the tapas bar — the one that set the standard for Spanish counter dining in London. The concept was born from brothers Sam and Eddie Hart's obsession with Barcelona's famed Cal Pep, and it showed. At its peak, the brand earned a Michelin star at its Dean Street branch. So, years and multiple branches later, does Adelaide Street still carry that energy? Mostly yes. Fully? Not quite. Rainy day in London with typical Spanish restaurant red front 🍽️ Food & Drinks The cooking is still very solid — this much hasn't changed. The daily specials blackboard showcases dishes built from that day's finest produce, which keeps things feeling alive rather than static, and the standard tapas hold up well. Decent  croquettes The croquettes are decent — creamy centred and prope...

Some restaurants earn their hype.  Fallow is one of them. Tucked into St James's Market just off Haymarket, Fallow has become one of London's most talked-about tables since launching as a Heddon Street residency and graduating to a permanent home with a Michelin Guide listing to its name. The team — two Dinner by Heston alumni. They also has a more than 2m subscribers Youtube channel teaching cooking (I have learnt a few from it) On a late afternoon visit, the place was still absolutely rammed. At any hour of the day or night, Fallow is packed. 🍽️ Food & Drinks Tight space and small table The mushroom parfait is the signature and it earns the title — deeply creamy, intensely mushroomy, and served with toast that provides exactly the right vehicle for getting as much of it as possible into your mouth. A genuinely excellent bite. Tasty signature mushroom parfait The flamed   mussels delivered a lovely charcoal-flame depth that elevated what could have been a straightfor...

Here's a truth nobody puts on the Nice tourist brochure: France has bad restaurants too and they tend to cluster helpfully in one place — near the water, with a a Google Maps rating that makes the whole thing look deceptively reasonable. Ô Cap, on the Port of Nice, ticks every single one of those boxes. A really beautiful view from the restaurant We hadn't planned dinner on our first night — classic mistake — and ended up strolling along the port and ducking into the first place that looked promising. Menus and prices that seemed fair, a breezy terrace overlooking the yachts. In we went. 🍽️ Food & Drinks First things first: Ô Cap is not a French restaurant. It's Cape Verdean — "Ô Cap" as in Cape Verde — with a menu built around Portuguese and West African-influenced dishes. That's genuinely interesting on paper. In practice, it just wasn't executed well enough to justify the price. Average quality of mussels but sauce tast good The mussels were f...

Monaco Home of the Grand Prix, the super yachts, and eye-watering price tags on a glass of tap water. If you're visiting the French Riviera, it's almost a rite of passage to pop in for a wander — but eating well without remortgaging is a genuine challenge. Spoiler: it's possible, just barely. And the secret weapon is a market that's currently being rebuilt from the ground up. 🏗️ The Setup — Marché de la Condamine Under Renovation The Marché de la Condamine on Place d'Armes — Monaco's beloved food market sitting directly at the foot of the Prince's Palace — is currently in the middle of a major €10–12 million renovation that kicked off in January 2026 and won't wrap up until early 2027. But rather than simply shutting up shop, the whole operation has been transplanted outdoors: food counters line the square in the open air, with large covered marquee tents providing shelter for indoor dining. It's a bit makeshift. It's also absolutely the righ...

There are few things in life more reliable than a French boulangerie. Every time I visit France, the pastries are genuinely one of the things I look forward to most — and Nice is absolutely no exception. Cheap, fresh, and made properly. A butter croissant for a euro or two. A pain au chocolat that actually tastes of chocolate rather than the sugar-bomb imitations you get from UK chains. This city has no shortage of boulangeries, and I managed to get round three of them in the Riquier neighbourhood. Here's how they stack up. 🥇 1. Boulangerie Panera — The One You Actually Need to Visit Let's cut straight to it: Panera isn't just good — it's the crowned winner of La Meilleure Boulangerie de France for the Côte d'Azur region, the famous M6 television competition. Ranked #1 in all of France for their sandwiches, and #2 nationally for croissant and pain au chocolat. So yes, expectations are high. And yes, they meet them. Showcasing their award The croissant is ever...

Nice  is an absolute dream city to eat in. Sun-drenched markets, fresh Mediterranean produce, and a food culture that blends French bistro tradition with an unexpected global flair. But whether you're on a tight budget or just a savvy eater who refuses to fork out €80 for a tourist trap, this guide is for you. Here are three restaurants I tried on a recent trip — honest reviews, no fluff, one genuinely left-of-field pick. 🐟 Peixes — Reliable, Fresh, and Thoroughly Fishy in the Best Way Can't beat sitting outdoor on a sunny day Peixes has quietly become one of Nice's most beloved seafood spots — popular enough that they've now got two locations across the city (the original Opéra branch near the town hall, and this one, Bonaparte, closer to the port). We visited Bonaparte, and if you're staying anywhere near the old port area, this is your one. It's a Michelin Guide-selected seafood restaurant built around a tapas-style sharing concept — Mediterranean meets S...