About Wrap Your Lips Around This

The opinionated friend who has already eaten there

I’m Mehreen Amira, the writer and eater behind Wrap Your Lips Around This.

I’ve been writing about restaurants in London for more than a decade, which means I’ve eaten through a lot of menus in the name of research. Some meals have been spectacular – some have been expensive mistakes.

These days, Wrap Your Lips Around This is mostly about one thing: helping you eat better in London.

That means telling you the dishes I’d go back for, the ones I’d skip, whether the viral restaurant is actually worth queuing for and, when a menu is enormous and expensive, how to order without regretting your life choices when the bill arrives.

I don’t want to tell you that everything was delicious. Instead, I want to tell you what was actually worth eating.

What you’ll find here

There are individual London restaurant reviews, neighbourhood food crawls, cafe and bakery guides, and halal recommendations. You’ll also find bigger guides to things I’m particularly committed to researching, whether that’s London’s best pizza, burgers, desserts or the dishes I think everyone should eat at least once.

The recommendations are based on food I’ve actually eaten.

If something is brilliant, I’ll tell you.

If the restaurant is beautiful but the roast potatoes are criminal, I’ll tell you that too.

And if one £12 side dish is somehow better than the £40 thing everyone photographs for Instagram, that’s probably the thing I’m going to spend most of the review talking about.

How I review restaurants

The question behind every review is simple:

If a friend asked me whether they should spend their own money here, what would I tell them?

I pay attention to the things I would want to know before booking: what to order, what isn’t worth the stomach space, price, portion size, atmosphere, who the restaurant suits and whether the experience lives up to the hype surrounding it.

Where useful, you’ll also find practical information such as location, dietary information and what our meal actually cost.

Restaurants change, chefs move and menus evolve, so I also revisit old favourites. A restaurant I loved ten years ago doesn’t get a permanent free pass just because I once wrote nice things about it.

A note on invitations, PR and independence

Sometimes restaurants, hotels or PR teams invite me to experience something.

An invitation never guarantees coverage, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee a positive review.

If a meal or experience has been hosted or gifted, I disclose that. When I’ve paid independently, you’ll increasingly see that stated in the review too.

Positive editorial coverage, inclusion in a best-of guide and favourable opinions are not for sale.

Commercial collaborations, where I choose to accept them, are kept separate from independent editorial recommendations and clearly identified as such.

My mission is not to make every restaurant sound good – it’s to be useful to the person deciding where to eat.

Halal dining

You’ll also find an expanding collection of halal and halal-friendly restaurant recommendations.

I try to be specific rather than simply describing somewhere as halal-friendly. Where I can, I’ll tell you whether the full menu is halal, whether only particular meats or dishes are halal, and whether alcohol or non-halal meat is also served.

Supply chains and menus can change, so particularly important dietary information should always be confirmed with the restaurant before travelling.

And occasionally, I leave London

Wrap Your Lips Around This has accumulated quite a travel archive over the years, and I still love an exceptional hotel, a brilliant food market and planning an entire holiday around where I’m going to eat.

You’ll find those adventures in the Travel section.

But London food is the beating heart of the site.

Come hungry

If you’re trying to decide where to eat next, start with the latest restaurant reviews, browse the Best in London guides, explore somewhere by neighbourhood or dive into the halal section.

And if you’ve discovered somewhere extraordinary that I should know about, tell me.

There’s always room on the list for one more meal.