Our summary of what the national and local restaurant critics were writing about in the week ending 19 February 2023.
The Observer
“Inventive, geeky and superb.”
Jay Rayner visited Matsudai Ramen, the “first dedicated ramen shop in Wales”, which arrived in Cardiff late last year, from an “unexpected source” James Chant, “a one-time musician, tour manager for noughties indie bands… and organiser of music festivals” who changed careers at 40 after his first taste of ramen.
“Chant identifies himself as a 40-something white bloke from Cardiff. You can wrinkle your nose at the notion of him getting armpit-deep in such a profoundly Japanese dish, but he sits in a noble tradition of non-Japanese chefs honouring the essentials.”
Pop-ups in 2019 and lockdown meal kits (one of which Jay thoroughly enjoyed – “it was a joyous burst of sunshine at our table amid the darkness”) have led to this first brick-and-mortar site, “a broad, brightly lit space” in Cardiff’s Grangetown.
Jay ate “impeccable karaage”, a “thrillingly vegan take on crispy squid” (and the “revelation” of vegan tonkotsu) and the signature tonkotsu (which “has an almost Dulux gloss to it, speckled with jewels of molten fat”).
The Evening Standard
No review from Jimi Famurewa this week, but there was a round-up of the “best pancakes in London for Pancake Day” (Shrove Tuesday, 21 February) along with a few crêpe puns and flipping awful jokes.
There was also the news that Smoking Goat is turning into a Thai fried chicken restaurant for the whole of March, inspired by “a recent trip through Bangkok… trying the famous Fah Fried Chicken stall found on Charoen Krung Road”.
Lastly, news of a new eating space at Claridge’s, of all places; ArtSpace Café is a daytime cafe with its own Brook’s Mews entrance and “features a new pâtisserie counter and communal tables alongside a “vast gallery” with changing exhibitions, all free to view”.
The Guardian
“A glimmer of independently owned Spanish-Scottish fishiness in Soho.”
Grace Dent tried out Maresco, “a small pocket of sanity on the corner of Berwick Street, which is one of the last pleasantly grotty parts of old Soho left”.
She hasn’t eaten out in central London much recently; “the capital’s new openings landscape is being overshadowed by “everywhere else not in London” right now, thanks to rents, rates and staff shortages”.
The seafood at Maresco, “transformed by an army of Spanish chefs, is a mixture of crowdpleasing classics and the innovative”. “The menu sings its love of the Scottish coast like a tipsy Proclaimer.”
Grace recommends you sit up at the bar and try everything – there are good meat and veg options for non-fish eaters – and finish with the “authentic” Basque cheesecake, “crustless, perilously soft, nearly collapsing and pleasingly whiffing of actual cheese”.
“A singular vision of how diners might enjoy the best of two worlds: the cut and thrust of Peterhead fish market and a night out in Palma, Mallorca.”
The Times
“I don’t believe that a recipe can be owned by a person or a country or a culture, any more than a joke or a story or a sexual technique can.”
Giles Coren was in a contrary mood this week; his reviews started with several paragraphs on the topic above before moving on to his review of Akub, the Palestinian restaurant from “French-trained Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan”; Giles poked fun at the review published by “the beleaguered leftist restaurant website Eater” and went on to mention a recent interview in The New York Times in which Kattan accused Israel of “co-opting” traditional foods “like hummus, falafel, tabbouleh, fattoush and shawarma”.
(“I began to wonder if this was some sort of Hamas-themed novelty joint that I should, as a Jew, perhaps avoid.”)
Unfortunately, after all this preamble, it turned out that the restaurant “isn’t much cop”. There were some good dishes, but “has Akub found literally the only chef in the Middle East who can’t cook an aubergine?”
The “terrifically instagrammable” dumplings were “tough and as joyless to chew as old piano castors”, the staff (while “cute to look at and charming to talk to”) are “a long way off fully trained” and the meal ended with the “worst cheesecake ever”.
“You know who makes good cheesecake? Jews. So my advice is to nip out and steal one, pronto. You can tell them I said it was okay.” (18/30)
The Independent
Kate Ng had “a two-hour holiday” at El Ta’koy in Covent Garden, a “fun, flirty little spot” where the food “ranges from middling to pretty damn good” and the “cocktails are dangerously delicious”.
Cuban-American chef Luis Pous fuses “Asian and Cuban flavours” at this “small but perfectly formed restaurant and tiki bar”.
Kate recommends choosing two from the starters, sharing plates and mains, but not all three – “the plates here are generous and you will eat well no matter how you choose”.
The Scotsman
On a day when “the wind was squalling and there was sideways rain”, Gaby Soutar dropped into The Pierhouse Hotel in Port Appin to enjoy a “balmy bowlful” of Cullen skink (“the ultimate in comfort food”) and try “seafood on the shore of Loch Linnhe”, even though the loch itself was barely visible.
Too full after the soup and mussels, she is “adding the act of skipping their pud to my long list of life regrets”. (17.5/20)
And also…
The FT’s Globetrotter recommended seven London spots for dinner and jazz.
In The Telegraph, Ed Cumming discusses the growing trend of Japanese set-menu omakase restaurants; it’s “not a custom you would expect to thrive during a cost-of-living crisis – but these restaurants are sprouting everywhere”.
Bristol Post reported on Porto Lounge, a Fishponds veteran of over 20 years, which has moved premises to “a huge premises just up the High Street”.
Manchester Evening News reported on the name change of Sugo to Sud after a legal battle with a (newer) Glasgow restaurant with the same name.
