Our weekly roundup of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 16th February 2025
London Standard
Bar Valette, Hoxton
David Ellis was underwhelmed by the new venture from Isaac McHale of nearby heavyweight The Clove Club, this one a self-styled “European restaurant” with mostly Spanish and some French dishes in a similar vein to Tomos Parry’s Mountain.
The food was no more than “all right. Definitely all right. Just the sort of stuff you don’t talk about the next day”. Or, as David’s dining companion put it more bluntly, “the place is a molehill next to Mountain”.
The real problem, though, was a price-point more suited to exceptionally ambitious cooking (Clove Club, perhaps) rather than a “slighty rackety” bar with white plates, posters on the wall and squeezed-together tables: “£309 for two. For a night of fried chicken and snails and no pudding. For God’s sake.”
*****
The Guardian
Vatavaran, Knightsbridge
Grace Dent stuck her critic’s knife into a “fancy pants” new venue from prominent Indian chef Rohit Ghai (Jamavar, Kutir) that feeds rich tourists sent by posh local hotels – “though if this clonking behemoth of real estate were in Huddersfield rather than Knightsbridge, it would make a pretty good Wetherspoons”.
The menu claimed to cover the Indian subcontinent, but seemed “far more modern and experimental than wildly authentic” with such dishes as beetroot chops and kidney bean kebabs. The latter turned out to be unseasoned minced beans shaped into a patty and fried: “It was grimly edible, but only if you were very hungry.” Much of what she ate was no better.
Grace was also irritated by the restaurant’s claim to be inspired by the Himalayas, as ‘a dynamic, participatory journey through the flavours of the mountains’. “I’d rather be rescued from the Mera Peak with missing toes than eat there again”. Ouch.
*****
The Observer
Don’t Tell Dad, Queen’s Park
Jay Rayner became the latest critic to heap praise on this bakery/restaurant catering to the “lotus-eating middle classes” of Queen’s Park, where it nestles in a private street with a “lovely rackety Copenhagen vibe” alongside Carmel, Milk Beach and a branch of Pizza Pilgrims.
Serving what Jay called approvingly, with a nod to the great cookery writer Jane Grigson, “Cosmopolitan English” cuisine, it is the sort of place that used to be found in the West End (or “Central” as the kids call it these days), showing how the capital’s gravitational pull has shifted further out.
Head chef Luke Frankie (ex-Noble Rot and Drapers Arms) was on “impeccable” form. “Anywhere which braises oxtail down until it is a sticky mess of uber-gravy-slicked meaty threads, tops a heap of it with dripping-fried breadcrumbs, and then puts all of that on a small crumpet and calls it a snack, is fine by me.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
The Railway Inn, West Bromwich
Hot on the heels of Jay Rayner’s rave review of a Desi pub in Wolverhampton, Giles Coren also caught a train to the Black Country to eat with a couple of Times readers at a vast pub – all slot machines, beer at £4.50 a pint and sport on the TV – with an Indian menu.
“The mega mixed grill had two big pieces of cod pakora, half a kilo of tandoori chicken breast, wings, seekh kebab, three big lamb chops… It’s easily enough food for three people on its own, with a couple of nice wheaty keema naans (£2.99), so that’s a massive slap-up curry lunch and a pint for under 15 quid.”
Giles made no direct comment on the quality of the food – but neither did he complain, and quality was not really the point: he was out to prove that real pubs do food these days, and at various price levels. For the record though, he awarded the Railway Inn a respectable 6 out of 10 for cooking and a whopping 9 out of 10 for value.
***
Noodles Homes, Edinburgh
Chitra Ramaswamy joined the throng of East Asian students that regularly pack out the two floors of a TikTok viral hit restaurant in Newington, an area “fast becoming the capital’s unofficial Chinatown”.
Amid strong competition this place, she is told, is “the best for hand-pulled noodles”, and sure enough “the smells from the kitchen are sensational”. Everyone seems to be having the Lanzhou ramen, so Chitra followed suit – “and, my word, the noodles. So chewy, springy as cables, flawless.”
Best of all were the spicy king prawn wontons “in a dark red oil-slicked broth more floral than hot, Sichuan pepper-ish but without the numbing tingle, so surprising I go to the till and ask the server what’s in it. It’s Noodles Home’s secret chilli sauce. And she’d never eaten anything like it until she worked here either.”
***
Myse, North Yorkshire
Charlotte Ivers travelled to deepest North Yorkshire to experience a 17-course tasting menu from chef Josh and sommelier Victoria Overington, formerly of York’s acclaimed Le Cochon Aveugle. Both of them, she noted with approval, are the type of nerds who obsesses over every detail, from the driftwood on the tables to the loo paper that is re-folded origami-style after each customer visit – “even by the standards of fancy restaurants that’s insane.”
The food too, much of it sourced from nearby Castle Howard, was perfect in every detail, starting with first courses that were lined up in precise regiments. “Tiny charcoal pies filled with local roe venison and smoked caviar, served on top of pine branches, smoking slightly on hot coals. Lollipops of braised ox cheek, coated in Yorkshire pudding batter with fermented cucumber jelly; like a Big Mac with pickles, which matures in your mouth to something much deeper and more subtle.”
*****
Daily Mail
Dove, Notting Hill
Tom Parker Bowles mourned the demise of Orasay, Jackson Boxer’s “paean to British seafood”, but welcomed the chef’s follow-up in the same venue, where he provides “the sort of tucker that you always want to eat, but can’t be arsed to cook at home”.
The conversion has been a triumph, Tom declared, with cooking full of flavours that are “big and bold, but never overwhelming”.
His meal kicked off with a highlight – deep-fried lasagne, “a small, crisp square of truffle-scented succour, all pert pasta and oozing taleggio. What’s not to love? A contender for dish of the year, and we’re barely out of January. Not so much elevated as exalted.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
Plates, Shoreditch
William Sitwell, self-styled scourge of veganism, hater of tasting menus, who never dines out solo and avoids restaurants on Valentine’s Day, perched alone at the counter of Kirk Howarth’s newly Michelin starred vegan gaff on February 14 to plough through a multi-course taster.
And – you guessed it – he thoroughly enjoyed a “rich experience of fabulous charm and great endeavour”, with a number of culinary miracles including “sourdough with the texture and flavour of the finest croissant, a mini lasagne with a rich umami filling of mung and urad beans, and a wonderful little rice pudding ice cream”.
“Who cares that it’s vegan when it’s just clever, brilliant fun? And, unlike with most tasting menus, I leave feeling light of tummy and with room for dinner.” But William couldn’t leave the subject without a little carnivore’s kicker: “Which, back home for my Val’s Day date with my beloved wife, will be a ribeye and chips.”
*****
Financial Times
Snobby’s, Bristol
Tim Hayward headed to the “strategically defensible hipster high ground” of Redland’s Chandos Road to visit a restaurant sandwiched between Wilson’s and Dongnae with “a great wine list, a Sicilian and a Puglian in the kitchen” – but, he insisted, an “appalling” name.
Tim tried his best to be a snob about the menu, dismissing each dish before he ate it: burrata as “the contemporary prawn cocktail, only less ambitious”; butternut squash (served as gnudi) as “an idiotic vegetable, suitable only for mashing to wean babies”; puttanesca sauce as “unimaginative”; lamb ragu as a “greasy”; tiramisu as an “incredibly unimaginative” finale. The twist: he had to take it all back.
“I had firmly held preconceptions about every one of them, and at every turn, Snobby’s proved me wrong,” he recanted. It turned out to be a “belter” of a place – “now, if we can just do something about that name.
