Here’s our regular summary of what the national and local restaurant critics have been writing about in the week ending 13 February 2022.
*****
The Observer
Jay Rayner paid a visit to Sugarcane London, a “small, tidy Caribbean café on the Wandsworth Road serving, among other things, very good jerk chicken”.
He was drawn there by the incredible backstory; founder Tarell Mcintosh (“self-styled as Chef Tee”) is a 27-year-old care leaver who strives to employ other care leavers in order to help them progress. On top of this, a recent break-in wrecked the place, but “the local community, his neighbours and customers, crowdfunded the money he needed to get the place back on its feet”.
Started during lockdown with just £3,000, Sugarcane is “a gentle journey around the islands” of the Caribbean, with spiced gravy (for sipping) and bones for nibbling, and “kale and callaloo, to make sure you’ve eaten your greens”.
“This is all comfort food, made by someone who knows a bit about having to find a place of safety and now wants to offer you one, too.”
*****
The Independent
Two reviews in the Indy this week; regular food critic Molly Codrye is leaving, and visited The Aubrey, the new izakaya “smack bang in the middle” of the “cha-ching borough” of Knightsbridge for her final review.
It may have been “all velvet booths, shiny staff members and diners in the loos talking about Botox” but it was also welcoming, and not a total rip-off, with drinks “as sexy as the interiors”.
“The Aubrey seems to actually want to serve its customers good food. I’m sure it will do strikingly well, particularly with the crowd who have big enough pockets for Knightsbridge.”
*****
Also in The Independent, Hannah Twiggs took her veggie-dodging boyfriend to Tendril at The Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho, where chef Rishim Sachdeva is hosting a “mostly vegan” residency.
“Rishim isn’t the first young, bright star to grace this off-the-beaten-track spot”; this “boxy back room of a Fuller’s pub” previously hosted Asma Khan and Budgie Montoya on their culinary journeys to restaurant ownership.
The “insanely delicious” vegan discovery menu, at £29 per person was “extremely good bang for your buck”, serving up “laid-back, imaginative food” that “doesn’t fall into the trap of some other plant-based menus of being too ambitious or overly complex”. Service was “fast and personal, but not overbearingly so”.
“If it’s not already in the works, I beg the powers that be to make this a permanent spot.”
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent reviewed the revamped Booking Office 1869 at the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel. The railway station may be “a destination in its own right, where splendid gothic 19th-century architecture meets shimmery luxury boutique shopping”, but “until now”, Grace had “never been truly excited by St Pancras’s food offering”.
Booking Office now has the “unique talent” of chef Patrick Powell at the stoves; he’s “also behind one of London’s loveliest, and possibly most underrated fine dining experiences, Allegra at The Stratford”. Powell is “a fan of classic cooking, but he’s also a feeder and a creator of lavish comfort food”.
His menu is “much more ostentatious than a railway station typically deserves, and it’s made all the more gloriously incongruent by Parisian interior designer Hugo Toro’s lavish rethink of the space” (a style Grace has christened “Phileas Fogg Acid-Safari chic”) and a serious cocktail list.
“There’s even a raw bar with Irish oysters and tuna skewers with daikon” (“one of the best things on the menu”, alongside cashew hummus that’s an “emotional experience”)
“The Booking Office is not a sedate, genteel restaurant; it is a decidedly lively, slightly noisy, serious cocktail bar… that boasts one of the best menus within a two-mile radius.”
*****
The Evening Standard
David Ellis reviewed Wood & Water, Brixton’s “reimagining of Three Little Birds, the Jamaican cafe-by-day, rum kitchen-by-night” from owner April Jackson.
“Where TLB did bright lights, bare brick and sunshine yellow seats, Wood & Water has its lamps on low, a wall-papered jungle on the walls, and green velvet everything.”
The “thudding bass” led to grumbles about the volume, but also “improbably raucous moods for a Wednesday night”; the “British food with Jamaican soul” felt overly restrained (“if not rootless, then perhaps uncertain of its aspirations”) although the cocktails were “more obviously Caribbean, with rum in befuddling measures doing the heavy lifting”.
“There is refinement and elegance in this neighbourhood spot but there in the dark was fun too.”
*****
Also in The Standard, Jochan Embley reported on the James Knappett dining room opening next month at The George on Great Portland Street, Fitzrovia.
*****
The Sunday Times
“Of all the cultural and lifestyle elements in the UK that have changed out of all recognition since the 1960s, how we eat has to be right up there. And especially how we eat in restaurants.”
On the weekend that The Sunday Times Magazine celebrated its 60th birthday, Marina O’Loughlin was “thinking about the seismic movements in the world of food over those decades” and took a trip down memory lane with a visit to La Poule au Pot, which itself launched in the Sixties, when “posh food was overwhelmingly French”.
The menu was “a gorgeous time capsule: quiche, ratatouille, rillettes. Boeuf bourguignon, foie de veau, coq au vin” and “nobody has heard of dry January or restraint of any kind”. But it wasnit without modern touches – “among the specials rattled off by the staff, there’s now — shock! — a meat-free choice, cassoulet made with vegan sausages”.
*****
The Times
Ten years after he was told about a “little unassuming bakery and mezze joint” (by Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet) Giles Coren finally visited Honey & Co, and immediately regretted those ten years, which he made up for by going again the next day to Honey & Smoke, the sister restaurant which cooks “meat over open coals”.
“The mezze that are laid before us are simply beautiful to behold” and were “just dazzling, small and tightly organised, just room for them on our little table, not a flavour out of place, not a garnish too far. Delightful.”
Giles rarely has dessert, but didn’t want to disappoint the owner (and avid reader of his column), a “big smiley Israeli guy” called Itamar Srulovich. He chose the cheesecake (their signature dish) and it was “the business… life-changing. Epochal. Aeonic”. (35/40)
*****
The Mail on Sunday
Tom Parker Bowles in YOU Magazine reviewed the relocated Manteca, which is “Italian in spirit, but in practice just outrageously good”.
“The room is Shoreditch to its core, the walls bare and unadorned” complete with open kitchen; some dishes “are like shoving your head in a massive bass bin of flavour” while others are “gentle and discreet. Just like the service”.
“This is cooking to make the heart thump with delight. Not so much authentic as authentically inspired.”
*****
The Scotsman
Gaby Soutar checked out newly refurbished Watchman Hotel, which has a view of four golf courses, in Gullane, which “was recently named one of the UK’s poshest towns”.
“There’s a pleasant and uncontrived relaxed vibe in the dining room” and a menu that ranges from burgers to “a bit more interesting”, making for a “top notch posh feast”.
*****
And also…
Lots for foodies in The FT this week, with a review of Bench in Nether Edge, Sheffield, where “staff are disorientingly”; “like a lot of small indies, Bench is pitching itself as a “neighbourhood” restaurant. It might make me consider moving to the neighbourhood.” Also, a review of the “little wonders” – London’s “most delicious small restaurants… bijou, unpretentious eateries that are big on culinary flair — and atmosphere”. Koffmann & Vines continue to visit the capital’s elderly stalwarts with a trip to Daquise. And finally a review of The River Café’s podcast, in which “the restaurant’s owner, Ruth Rogers, invites famous guests to talk about cooking, eating and life”.
*****
BirminghamLive website reported on Simpsons in Edgbaston being voted one of the sexiest restaurants in the UK in The Times, and declared that Albert’s Schloss – on the strength of not one but four visits – is “the best thing to happen to Birmingham in a very, very long time. If the owners could bottle the atmosphere of this venue and sell it, they would be millionaires thousands of times over”.
