Are restaurant reviewers prone to collective hysteria? This might explain the occasions when a place manages to attract lots of favourable reviews, but turns out – for us, anyway – to be absolutely unremarkable.
For most new restaurants, of course, the first goal is to attract any commentary at all. For this, it helps to have some fashionable links. Well, Will Leigh, chef at this new gastropub, used to cook at Tom Conran’s nearby Cow, so that may help explain the volume of press the place has quickly attracted.
But rave reviews? That’s what’s puzzling here. To us, this just seemed a classic grungy boozer-conversion, of the type where you have no great confidence that the decrepit table will make it through lunch. Hey, we like tarted-up boozers as much as the next men, but not that many of them are special enough to make it into the national press. Let alone in glowing terms.
So, something special about the staff here? Well, if perfectly affable, they did nothing to upset our laid-back stereotype of the types who tend to work in North Kensington gastropubs. And the grub? Well, sadly it had no more fizz than they did. Two main courses – herb-crusted lamb, and fancily-provenanced pork faggots – were plain dull. A third – sausages and mash – was creditable enough, but the only dish that might have justified any sort of detour was some meat terrine. A chocolate mousse was no more than serviceable, and coffee was poor.
Even by the fashionably late hour when the (minor) media celebs had begun to roll in, the place was only moderately busy on our Sunday lunchtime visit. The reviewer frenzy, it seems, has yet to rub off on the locals.
