Jay Rayner weighs in on the north/south restaurant divide question

The Observer’s critic-in-chief heads to Manchester to try out the new Hawksmoor and stumbles across a veggie dining room, 1847, serving great food – well, apart from the desserts. Read our roundup of restaurant news in Manchester and enter our Hawksmoor Manchester competition.

Meanwhile the Guardian’s Marina O’Laughlin pays a visit to the much gushed about Kitty Fisher’s

Everyone else love, love, loves it but Marina can’t help but feel she’s ended up at a house party she wasn’t quite invited to, particularly as the restaurant staff seem allergic to answering the phone. We can attest to that having called them on at least 10 occasions without success.

The award for most ferocious review this week has to go to The Sunday Times’s A A Gill

The critic has a thing or two to say about Mayfair’s ‘ridiculously overpriced’ Mexican, Peyote, including: “…fiddly, neurotic preparation with pale, polite taste and silly, parsimonious sharing plates that aren’t bounteous or fun and are more like eating the catering pitch for a drug cartel’s wedding.”

Over at The Times, Giles Coren gives his opinion on Russian-imported pizza chain Bocconcino

“Bocconcino isn’t a bad restaurant. It just isn’t a necessary restaurant.” At £202 for pizza and pasta it’s not hard to see why Mr Coren might feel that way – mind you, a £46 bottle of wine probably helped nudge the bill up.

And last but not least, Ms Maschler reviews Brindisa’s new Morada Asador

The Standard’s long-standing critic heads to the latest outpost of this tapas chain (in Soho) and finds the meats are the reason to flock here – from the ‘delectable’ milk-fed lamb to the Secreto Iberico.