Lita

The Observer

Jay Rayner confessed to being “completely besotted” by a meal at this new Spanish joint that had reduced him to “heavenly raptures”.

Everything was wonderful, from the décor – “the joinery! It’s an orgy of tongue and groove, dovetail and pocket” – to the cooking from Irish chef Luke Ahearne, who managed to transform the simple tapas pan com tomate into something extraordinary. “Sure, there is a touch of gilding of the well-polished lily. Except, by God, each piece is a brilliant mouthful: salty, sweet umami-rich tomatoes, the bare-knuckle punch of the anchovies, the toasty
bread beneath. It’s a metropolitan, deluded take on the humble beach life.”

There is, sad to report, a catch. “Those dovetail joints don’t come cheap,” Jay warned. “The two mouthfuls of tomato bread are £9,” while the cheapest bottle of wine costs £54 and 1.2kg of barbecued Galician cow will set you back £160. Lita “sells itself as a sweet neighbourhood bistro. And it is, much as Buckingham Palace is a convenient townhouse.”

Jay Rayner - 2024-04-21

Evening Standard

Jimi Famurewa had little interest in what felt like the “kajillionth venture broadly steeped in the cuisine of southern Europe” to open in London, until he was persuaded to give Lita a try by Insta-raves – “And I don’t think I have ever been happier for my gut instinct to have been so completely wrong.”

Irish head chef Luke Ahearne’s cooking was “nothing short of staggering”, and included two puddings – a Mayan Red chocolate ganache with coffee, popcorn ice cream and salted caramel, and a spin on lemon meringue pie – “that are easily the best I’ve had in months”.

Despite the “vertiginous lunacy of a bill” that includes wines starting at a heady £54 a bottle, Lita is “an impeccably crafted, legitimate contender for launch of the year”. So it comes as a relief to learn from Jimi that there’s supposedly an entry-level set menu on the way.

Jimi Famurewa - 2024-04-29

The Times

Giles Coren doubled up this week (those Times expenses!) with two new restaurants ploughing similar southern-Med furrows a couple of miles apart in central London – both of which have already been well reviewed by his fellow critics.

The main difference Giles discerned between the two was price. Lita is “a very expensive restaurant in very expensive Marylebone”, with a food bill topping £200 a head backed up by a wine list that “was a bit scary to drink whole bottles from, only briefly wiping its feet at the £70-80 mark before going straight into triple figures.”

His meal started well, with excellent snacks and small plates including “show- stopping Limousin veal sweetbreads (the dish, sautéed by Marcus Wareing at Pétrus in 1999, that made me determined to become a restaurant critic), glazed, pink, sweet, milky, with Tropea onions and pomme puree”.

Grills came off worse: a “dreary” spatchcocked Anjou poussin “tasted more like a First World War carrier pigeon scorched at the Somme than a ladylike lunchtime delicacy”, while a “dull” sirloin of Friesian was “what we who like a chewy old milker have to put up with now that the elderly Galician Rubia Gallega have all been eaten”. The solution? “Stick to the top two thirds of the menu.”

On to Morchella, which is “more gorgeous to look at… with a steepling ceiling, huge windows, enchanting light, wonderful new wood and cute gimmicks like little cutlery drawers built into the tables and eating bar”, and about half the price of Lita, at £100 a head.

Interesting, the menu followed a similar trajectory to Lita’s, with promising starters such as “brilliantly conceived and executed salt cod churros on a braised red pepper sauce” let down by disappointing main dishes.

Giles also noted that the service charge at Morchella was fully incorporated into the food prices with no tip invited, while at Lita it was a 15% bolt-on. “The Morchella route is surely the future.”

Giles Coren - 2024-05-19

The Times

Tim Hayward was in turn amused, enthralled, flabbergasted and appalled by a Mediterranean restaurant which opened earlier this year to general critical enthusiasm.

As a first-time visitor he was subjected to a mini lecture on “The Concept”, which turned out to be “Broadly Italian/Bitish ingredients/ small plates/sharing courses… Ninety-eight times out of 100, it’s the same concept.”

Much of the food was pretty delicious – mussels; raw Fuentes bluefin tuna with “finely minced corno peppers… that made me profoundly happy”; Romana courgettes with artichoke hearts and ricotta; rice cooked in squid ink with Scottish langoustines; Cornish lamb with smoked aubergine. Then came the main course, a choice between Cornish turbot, Peak District T-bone and rib of Galician beef ranging from £120 to £160. “Even though these dishes were conceptually designed to be shared, it’s the first time I’ve looked at lunch and thought, no… there is genuinely no way I can justify that on expenses.”

The most upsetting feature, however, was the sight of waiting staff so gorgeous that it occurred to Tim they had been hired for their looks. “I’m fat, old and bald. They largely make me feel awkward, ugly and irrelevant.”

“Lita represents something new to me. I loved the food, the service was impeccable and the prices are no more shocking than we’re going to have to get used to. What I’m less comfortable with is eating in a restaurant designed for people better than me.”

Tim Hayward - 2024-08-18

Daily Mail

Perfection comes at £200 a head (if you stick to a cheaper wine) at this ‘modern Mediterranean bistro’, said Tom Parker Bowles – not bothered at all that his fellow reviewers trooped through and eulogised in similar fashion six or seven months ago.

“What a place this is, though”, he purred, hailing head chef Luke Ahearne (previously of the Clove Club and Corrigan’s Mayfair) as a “towering talent” combining “great technical skills with culinary nous”. Every dish Tom tasted was a winner, from pan com tomate and gazpacho to Orkney scallop with nduja, Basque sardine fillets and monkfish. 

“Best of all are veal sweetbreads, burnished and sticky below a mass of sweetcorn, girolles and charred onion, atop a smear of buttery pommes purée. The dish elevates those splendidly spongy glands into a symphony of mellow fruitfulness, probably the best thing I’ve eaten all year.”

Tom Parker-Bowles - 2024-11-17