Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 11th August 2024
Evening Standard
Mamapen at The Sun & 13 Cantons, Soho
Jimi Famurewa gave a warm welcome to what it is “incredibly, London’s only Cambodian restaurant” – a residency at the foodie Soho pub that served as a launch-pad for Darjeeling Express and Sambal Shiok, among others. This time around it is launching Kaneda Pen, a former advertising exec who retrained as a chef at Aqua Kyoto and has made it his mission to bring his native Khmer cooking to a wider audience.
Khmer food culture shares similarities with other Southeast Asian cuisines but “thrums with its own sour punch and indulgent originality” – most crucially through “kroeung, a fragrant, fresh-pounded paste that is the foundational rocket fuel of Cambodian cuisine” – and which brings star quality to Mamapen’s “gushingly juicy BBQ Khmer half-chicken”.
The project is very much “an exuberant, chest-beating expression of national pride” but Jimi also notes also plenty of “lights-out deliciousness” and a real sense of fun. The “‘tattie mince noodles’ (partly inspired by Pen’s Scottish girlfriend, Mountain pastry chef Jo Garner) are a warming mound of starch, heat and spud-laced beef that is the uproarious Khmer-Caledonian mash-up that you didn’t realise you needed in your life”.
*****
The Guardian
Galleria, Leeds
Grace Dent was in full-on professional Northerner mode after visit to an all-day restaurant attached to the newish Project House arts centre in Leeds – a city she insists has “always been chock-full of some of Britain’s greatest dandies, dreamers and creative crackpots”, rather than the “brash Yorkshire pragmatists” of Southern myth.
Under chef Andy Castle, previously of nearby grill restaurant Ox Club, everything on the menu is freshly made and “much, much more enticing than your average arts centre cafe-bar’s – there’s not a limp slice of quiche or a thawed-out coffee and walnut cake in sight”. Grace then upped the ante with another dig at the South: the food was “way more appetising than 90% of the places in our so-called capital city”.
The menus at Galleria “cherrypick lovely, snacky things from around the world – from France, Greece, the USA, Asia, north Africa – but what unites them is Castle’s thoughtful, complex, fresh approach”. Best of all are the “fluffy, salty, judiciously charred flatbreads” with a variety of toppings (mortadella, smoked pineapple, mustard and jalapeño; pulled lamb’s leg with kalamata olives, black garlic and mint; or tomato, crispy chilli butter and wild oregano”. “These flatbreads, like all great art, take a lot of time and love to create, beginning life at least 42 hours before they’re eaten”.
*****
The Observer
Bokman, Bristol
Jay Rayner headed to Stokes Croft in Bristol, where husband-and-wife chefs Kyu Jeong Jeon and Duncan Robertson, who met while working at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris, cook a “crowd-pleasing selection” of Korean food in a “knowingly rackety” and far-from-comfortable canteen-style restaurant.
Th meal starts promisingly with perilla leaves wrapped around minced beef and pork and deep fried – “god-tier snacks”, said Jay. The real highlight of his meal was ‘tongdak’ or wood-fired roast chicken stuffed with sticky rice and served with dipping sauces and cubes of pickled mooli – a signature dish that must be ordered in advance when you book.
It’s best eaten ‘ssam’ style, with extra condiments, including their own gochujang chilli paste. “Making it is a profoundly nerdy, determined thing to do, which describes the whole enterprise. The kitchen has a laser-like focus on these few very good things.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Eusebi Deli, Glasgow
Chitra Ramaswamy had a “fabulous” time at a “Glasgow institution” that began life three generations and four decades ago as a deli in the city’s East End, which is now the in-house bakery to the newer West End restaurant where she ate (a separate small-plates and natural wines spinoff is opening soon in nearby Gibson Street).
Chitra reckoned it’s “the real deal: a simultaneously old-school yet modern family-run Italian revering the best ingredients, sourced from all over the country”. The Eusebi family have been “studying the small print” on regional artisan pizza since well before “nerdiness relating to sourdough … and pizza ovens … and flour” was a thing. Their lasagne is a “stone-cold classic” that has been “sticking to the ribs of generations of Glaswegians”.
The Times is experimenting with AI-generated editing, which showed up amusingly in a picture caption which read: “If Ramaswamy in Glasgow she would be here all the time”. Being human readers, you probably gist.
***
Ibai, Smithfield
Charlotte Ivers encountered a “truly life-changing” dish this week – something she will remember on her deathbed: the twist on the good old Gallic croque monsieur from chef Richard Foster at this new French-Basque restaurant.
The ‘croque Ibai’ is a toasted sandwich stuffed with boudin noir, carabinero prawns and tomme de brebis cheese, topped with a thin film of honey. “Honestly, whose idea was that? Putting a sweet prawn in a bed of crumbly black pudding and earthy sheep’s cheese? Magnificent. There’s something almost unholy about the decadence. Then to think to add honey as the finishing touch? That’s laughing in the face of God: a Tower of Babel of a sandwich.”
Also passing muster in style were king crab rice cooked in a “truly astonishing bisque” and wagyu steak that was “an absolute masterclass” in buttery marbling.
“Now look, there are problems with this restaurant,” Charlotte insisted, in the spirit of journalistic objectivity. “The decor’s a bit industrial, the service on the slow side, and boy is it expensive. But in terms of food? You’re not having a better meal this year.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
The Park, Bayswater
William Sitwell was disappointed by the food at the second of Jeremy King’s comeback launches, although the “grand” New York vibe and luxurious fit-out, all “golden African limba panels and large, funky art”, with service to match impressed him.
Too many dishes simply missed the mark, including a “scraggily chopped” Cobb salad and a ‘Gotham shrimp cocktail’ that came with a “red dip…[that] was a gutless, wet salsa of tomatoey nothingness. It was hard to get on to the shrimp. The shrimp didn’t dip, the dip didn’t cling.”
Other dishes were “decent”, if not exciting, and it was not much compensation that the ice-cream cookie sandwich was “magnificently Instagrammable”. William concluded that “A tighter, better executed menu and The Park would be a restaurant as great as its name evokes”.
