SquareMeal is a restaurant review and booking website and smartphone app, with reviews of 5,000

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and UK restaurants and bars. The site publishes a yearly restaurant and bar guide and runs the BMW Restaurant of the Year Awards. The 2014 winner was Gymkhana. Previous winners have included The Five Fields in 2013, Dabbous in 2012 and Pollen Street Social in 2011. The award for BMW Square Meal Award for Best UK Restaurant went to Northcote. Previous winners include Purnell's Bistro and

The Kitchin The Kitchin is a fine dining restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland, run by Tom Kitchin and his wife Michaela (née Berseilus). It serves fresh Scottish produce in a French style from Kitchin's time spent with Alain Ducasse. It was awarded a Mi ...

. SquareMeal provides

à la carte In restaurants, ''à la carte'' (; )) is the practice of ordering individual dishes from a menu in a restaurant, as opposed to '' table d'hôte'', where a set menu is offered. It is an early 19th century loan from French meaning "according ...

restaurant bookings in the UK, with users making reservations by telephone, email and online booking. The website lists over 11,000 bookable restaurants online, in addition to restaurant news, reviews and articles. Diners can review and give restaurants a star rating whilst bloggers can link their

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

reviews of restaurants. The site also runs a premium points-based Reward scheme with members receiving points when they book online. Their Concierge service, launched in 2012, allows bookers to find restaurants or venues for private dining. SquareMeal's holding company, Monomax Ltd, is the publisher of printed versions of the SquareMeal Restaurants & Bars Guide and Venues & Events Guide. These are free to qualifying executives in Central London and have a circulation of 104,000. Members also receive a quarterly restaurant and lifestyle magazine and e-newsletters.

Venues & Events

SquareMeal's Venues & Events is a guide and website that provides events professionals with information about venues and events suppliers in London and the UK. Their annual trade show, Venues & Events Live is held in September at

Old Billingsgate Market Old Billingsgate Market is the name given to what is now a hospitality and events venue in the City of London, based in the Victorian building that was originally Billingsgate Fish Market, the world's largest fish market in the 19th century. ...

. In 2013 show drew over 7,000 events organisers. Members of the SquareMeal venues and events audience receive a quarterly Magazine, e-newsletters and the annual Venues and Events Guide, published by Monomax Ltd. SquareMeal also runs a free helpline to assist events professionals. It handles over £5m of revenue & corporate entertainment enquiries annually.

History

SquareMeal was founded in 1989 by University friends Simon White and Mark de Wesselow, while working in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

Connections

The online restaurant booking service is powered by BookaTable (previously known as Livebookings) and

OpenTable OpenTable is an online restaurant-reservation service company founded by Sid Gorham, Eric Moe and Chuck Templeton on 2 July 1998 and is based in San Francisco, California. In 1998, operations began with a limited selection of restaurants in ...

. The site's editor Ben McCormack is a contributor to the ''

Telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

'' Luxury magazine. SquareMeal supports homeless charity StreetSmart. The campaign is supported by Richard Bacon and

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

and chefs including

Angela Hartnett Angela Maria Hartnett (born September 1968) is an English Michelin-starred chef. A protégée of Gordon Ramsay who became well known by her appearances on British television, she was Chef-Patron at Angela Hartnett at The Connaught in London. Cu ...

Marcus Wareing Marcus Wareing (born 29 June 1970) is an English celebrity chef who is currently Chef-Owner of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant Marcus (formerly Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley) in Knightsbridge. Since 2014, Wareing has been a judge on '' Mast ...

Jason Atherton Jason Atherton (born 6 September 1971) is an English chef and restaurateur. His flagship restaurant Pollen Street Social gained a Michelin Star in 2011, its opening year. He was the Executive Chef at Gordon Ramsay's Michelin starred ''Maze'' i ...

and

Fergus Henderson Fergus Henderson (born 31 July 1963) is an English chef who founded the restaurant St John on St John Street in London. He is often noted for his use of offal and other neglected cuts of meat as a consequence of his philosophy of nose to tai ...

References

{{Reflist 1989 establishments in the United Kingdom Restaurant guides