Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 16th March 2025
London Standard
David Ellis was puzzled at this pop-up-gone-permanent restaurant from Joo Won, the Korean-born former head chef at the Galvin Brothers’ Windows. If his ambition was to produce London’s best Korean food, David said, he had fallen short despite some real triumphs – including the “near perfect” signature fried chicken, let down by too much sugar in its chilli and peanut sauce.
Also problematic was the “absent-minded and faintly bewildered” service – “as though perhaps they’d been pinched from a local Hare Krishna meet, or wandered in to eat and unwittingly been put to work”.
But if Joo’s ambition was to “draw a local crowd to his cool wine bar/bistro, and give them something they’ve not had before, and at a price which feels very fair” – then in David’s view “he has sprinted past his own finish line, even if quality control needs a beadier eye”.
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent was unable to resist the charms of this “utterly lovable mega-posh pretend pub” in a backstreet near Victoria Station, while acknowledging that its prices might leave “anyone remotely normally waged standing outside in the cold, staring through the window like Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match Girl”.
An iced seafood counter bearing lobsters, carabineros, sea urchins and house caviar (served with turbot-dripping potatoes and creme fraiche at £100 a pop) set the tone for some mouth-watering dishes from Basque-born chef Adam Iglesias.
“You’ll have noticed that I have not called the Prince Arthur a gastropub, despite it clearly being gastronomical and being housed inside something resembling a pub,” Grace explained. “Welcome to the bright new dawn of the turbo-bougie boozer.”
*****
The Observer
Kirsty Wark, sitting in for the departed Jay Rayner, visited the third venue from Glasgow restaurateur Jonathan MacDonald, 11 years on from his debut Ox and Finch. Named in honour of his mother, this is a “real passion project from the man who has set a high bar for dining in the city”, with a New York feel and a “beautifully curated main dining area” that can accommodate solo diners at the counter, tables for two or parties of 14 with equal ease.
A “crack front-of-house team” combined with chef Robin Aitken’s kitchen brigade to deliver “relaxed, elegant eating that still feels bohemian and adventurous”, with European-inspired cooking using top-quality Scottish ingredients plus a wine list “designed to suit pockets as shallow as a puddle and as deep as Loch Ness”.
Kirsty insisted that is was “unthinkable” to leave Margo without sampling a selection of puddings to share.
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Giles Coren lined his stomach ahead of an evening swilling beer with a visit to a “clean, spare, functional Malaysian café” in Summertown with both “a standard Chinese menu you can ignore and a Malaysian one you can’t, full of authentic nonya standards done brilliantly and cheaply”.
He stuffed himself with “light, flaky roti chanai” and chicken curry sauce, a “huge” Singapore laksa, and battered deep-fried chicken “with a hefty spoonful of Marmite in the glaze that simultaneously baffled the hell out of and delighted me”.
“None of these were the subtlest, but the fully Malaysian family crowd when I walked in were happy as anything”. As was Giles.
***
Chitra Ramaswamy visited a restaurant (named after US modern artist Milton Avery) that chef Rodney Wages transferred to Stockbridge last year from San Francisco, having fallen in love with Scotland and its produce while on holiday. It serves a 12-course tasting menu to just 20 guests a night and is extremely expensive (her three glasses of wine cost £145) – although Chitra seemed to find the high price justified.
The cuisine managed to be simultaneously “Californian. And Scottish. And northern. And east Asian,” while the chef ’s “genius lies in barely cooking shellfish over fire so that they poach in their own juices and taste most strenuously of themselves.”
The meat courses were “marginally less successful”, but a cheese tart was flawless. “Wages and his tiny team — just two cooking in the kitchen on the night I was in — have brought something truly special to the capital.”
***
Wingmans, Kilburn
Charlotte Ivers stayed on her home territory in north London to eat on the Kilburn High Road, which boasts no fewer than 11 chicken shops – “This is a country in thrall to wings”. She opted for Wingmans, a local hero that has now opened a branch among the “the big city lights” of Soho.
“Yes, it’s a chicken shop but a reasonably upmarket one — and it’s doing new and interesting things”: to wit, “pointing at an atlas at random” and coming up with a sauce, as in ‘Jamaican’me crazy wings’ (with Scotch bonnet chilli sauce), ‘Bang Coq’ (sriracha, honey and lime, with Kewpie mayo), ‘Darjeeling Express’ (a tamarind concoction), ‘Shanghai Oriental’ (soy and sesame) and ‘the Szech One’ (Sichuan peppercorn and ginger rub).
“They are wonderful”, Charlotte insisted, “delicious. I’d take a 16-hour flight to get to them. But I don’t need to because this Frankenfood could only be right here, in this random backwater of the greatest city on earth. What a blessing.”
*****
The Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell visited a revived 14th-century inn in Suffolk where he eulogised a “staggeringly good” pie of Herefordshire beef stewed for hours in local ale as “literally the finest pie I can remember eating”.
Sea bream ceviche, raviolo, Scotch egg, wild mushroom croquette and roast partridge were all delicious, too, but William’s enjoyment was marred by “flouncy menu writing” and a manager who “shimmers” and “pirouettes” from the bar.
“The chef, who has great talent, ought to rein in his fine dining instincts to suit the surroundings” – “just call those pie accompaniments mash and gravy” (not Bordelaise sauce and pomme purée).
*****
Daily Mail
Jet-setting in the Caribbean, Tom Parker Bowles dropped into the tropical outpost of a “British seaside classic” from Colwell Bay on Isle of Wight. The seafood cooking was assured – “Antigua by way of Spain” – but Tom had a major beef: a “glut of British fish” on the menu.
“There’s Cornish Dover sole, along with turbot and sea bream, hauled from our waters. Sure, the British ocean bounty is some of the best on earth. But it seems a little strange, not to mention ecologically unsound, to fly it 4,000 miles across the Atlantic.”
*****
Financial Times
Tim Hayward performed yet another lap of honour before handing over the reins as the FT’s restaurant critic to Jay Rayner, taking the opportunity to name-check some of his favourite restaurants. For the record, they are: St John, Buchon Racine, Brutto, Ciao Bella, Noble Rot and Andrew Edmunds.
He also shared a quote which has inspired his reviewing – and his preference for counter dining – from the late American poet and food obsessive Jim Harrison: “Distance from food preparation poisons the soul with cold abstraction.”
And another inspirational quote, this time from Kurt Vonnegut: “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, and not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” Amen.
