Our weekly round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 23rd February 2025
London Standard
Shakara, Marylebone
David Ellis dined out at a new West African spot whose name apparently means ‘to pose or show off’ in Nigerian slang, and with a kitchen headed by former Talking Drum and Isibani chef Victor Okunowo. Complete with disco ball, house music played at party volumes and guests dressed up to the nines, Shakara is at least partly a nightclub – “And why not? It’s a night out, not a church service.”
His meal started with “an initial swagger of brilliance” – croquettes of peppered goat meat and smoked marrow that were “as rich as the neighbourhood” and a take on hummus inspired by waakye, a Ghanaian dish of black-eyed beans – but then “sighed into a slump of mediocrity”, with disappointing main dishes matched by inefficient service.
For all the talent in the kitchen, David felt, “There is a bit to be done before the food matches the evident pride in it.”
*****
The Guardian
Stark, East Mersea, Essex
Grace Dent was charmed by this gem on the “Côte d’Azur of Colchester”, where chef Ben Crittenden and his “greeter, server, sommelier and occasional kitchen porter” partner Sophie have reprised their tiny Broadstairs restaurant in a slightly larger format (20 covers or so).
It is, Grace reports, “about as ‘independent’ as a restaurant can get” and fulfils the “quasi-fantastical dream harboured by many hospitality veterans: how about if we opened a tiny place, and took away all those fussy, stressful bits of restaurateuring such as staffing, posh fit-outs and lengthy menus?”
Ben, solo in the kitchen, makes fine produce the star of the show, creating a succession of “punchily flavoured pieces of art”. Among the best is a bowl of whipped goat’s curd that appears towards the end of dinner. “But is it pudding or another savoury course? Who can tell? It’s cheesy, certainly whiffy, with layers of thinly sliced grape, micro herbs, pistachio cake and chopped pistachio. It’s also quite unlike anything I’ve ever been served.”
*****
The Observer
Gilgamesh, Covent Garden
For possibly his final Observer review before decamping for the FT, Jay Rayner revisited a vast pan-Asian “experience” he reviewed almost two decades ago in its original Camden Market setting. His motive, he explained, was completism: “would Gilgamesh Mk II make any more sense than the original?”
Inevitably, perhaps, the short answer was No. A couple of dishes – popcorn shrimp; dragon sushi roll – were inoffensive enough. But it was the clunkers that grabbed the attention: an “excruciatingly sugary” crispy duck and watermelon salad that was like “a weird trip to the sweetie shop”; lemongrass chicken tasting of “very little including either lemongrass or chicken”; an “astringent and harsh” beef rendang which “a sloppy blight upon the dish’s very name”; “greasy and flaccid” roti; cauliflower and asparagus fried rice that “smells like it’s been made with the leftover cauliflower from a cheap pub Sunday roast”.
“Of course, I’ve made a category error here, just as I did 18 years ago,” Jay concluded. “I came to a restaurant thinking the food mattered.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Hansom, Northallerton
Giles Coren knew his ten-hour round trip to deepest North Yorkshire was going to be worth it from his first taste of chef Ruth Hansom’s bread-and-butter pudding appetizer; it was “gorgeous and new, sensual, full of love and truth”.
“Sheer beauty came next. Beauty and genius” in the form of pickled mushroom soup topped with a tuile wreath that was “a masterpiece of delicate pastry-making”. And the soup was properly hot, said Giles, whereas “fancy food is so often the temperature of spit” because it has been passed from flunky to flunky on its way to the pass. Not here, because there are no flunkies.
Hansom – the Darlington-born, Ritz-trained, first female winner of the Young National Chef of the Year, formerly of the Princess of Shoreditch – is another chef fulfilling her fantasy of running her own small place in the country, where she cooks without any back-up staff in the kitchen. Her husband Mark (who has a job of his own) helps out by picking up and dropping home customers within a 12-mile radius in his electric Lotus, free of charge. “Would you do that for your wife, to make her dreams come true?” asked Giles. He certainly would. “In this game, Ruth can have anything she wants,” he said. “She’s incredible.”
***
Ardfern, Leith, Edinburgh
Noting that restaurant critics don’t have locals “because we’re duty bound to eat in different places”, Chitra Ramaswamy admitted that she has gone to prolific chef Roberta Hall-McCarron’s all-day café, bar and bottle shop more than any other place since it opened last spring.
A regular for its “divine” batch-brew coffee, for brunch and for lunch, Chitra headed there for Sunday lunch to sample what “people keep telling me is the best roast of their life” and hash browns “so legendary I’ve heard them discussed on the dancefloor at parties”.
The beef lived up to its billing. “The rump cap, roasted then finished on the grill, is cut thick like a sirloin. It’s long-rested, blushing pink, iron-rich, soft as a fillet steak. Wow. Is it the best roast beef of my life? Oh yes.” And not to be outdone, the hash browns are “sinfully good”.
***
Sushi Tetsu, Clerkenwell
Charlotte Ivers scrubbed off the last vestiges of any perfume, as instructed in advance, to gain access to a “tiny, largely undecorated box room” where ultra-serious chef Toru Takahashi – “his nickname, Tetsu, means ‘iron’” – and his wife Harumi serve immaculate sushi to just seven diners at each three-hour omakase sitting.
Charlotte’s booking was secured by a friend who had spent three years on the project. It was worth ithe effort and expense, she reckoned, just as it was “wonderful to think there are two people who are devoting their lives to this odd, magical, beautiful thing.”
“There is none of the showy stuff you get at many fancy sushi places to justify the price. No caviar, no truffle. Everything is simple and perfect.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
Kabuli, Birmingham
William Sitwell visited an Afghan restaurant in Mosely whose “interior design clearly aims at posh, with wide and comfortable chairs and banquettes, soft and pale furnishings, heavily textured, white-washed, cave-like walls, marble-topped tables and golden cutlery”, and whose Instagram promises “fine dining”.
Much to his relief, this was not in fact true. “Instead it was actually very, indeed gloriously, straightforward, hearty, soul-satisfying and rustic.”
Not everything was perfect. William wanted a bit more heat in the qorma-e-murgh (chicken curry), and was mildly irritated that everything he ordered arrived at the same time. But on the whole it was “great grub”.
*****
Financial Times
The Astral, Westminster
Tim Hayward asked a London cabbie for directions to the best café, expecting to be sent to the famous Regency. “No mate,” came the reply. “The Regency’s full of tossers taking selfies. The Astral.”
He duly found himself in joint with steamed-up windows – “a dream-like, timeless, organically grown space” run by a Portuguese family and dotted with silent cab drivers. Here he found the bacon sandwich of his dreams: thin-sliced white packet bread, square cut, thickly spread with Anchor butter and filled with “rigorously functional, institutional bacon”, four rashers thick in the middle and two at each end.
“You know what I really mean. This is the ur-bacon sandwich. A whole that’s so much more than the sum of its parts, and any explanation somehow demeans both the sandwich and the man who consumes it.”
Eating it left Tim feeling “profoundly British, insufficiently in touch with my emotions to explain them.”
