Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 23rd March 2025
London Standard
David Ellis was primed to castigate this cod-Italian for its childish promise of “bottomless lasagna” (misspelt, he snootily corrected: it should be the plural form, lasagne), for the exclamation mark in its name, and for the “gruesomely twee job title founder Joe Worthington has given himself: Chief Béchamel Officer”.
Instead, he had an “absolute hoot… a riot of a good-time” in an “American-Italian trattoria where the shtick plays within a hair’s breadth of parody”.
The bargain lasagne turned out to be “a kind of bait”, lasagne being too filling for multiple helpings. The rest of the menu came well up to scratch, including a green garden salad that “was a joy”, generous plates of mortadella with pistachio, and a sound beef shin ragu that was “better than Big Mamma, just about, and not nearly so pleased with itself”. Another plus point: quickly served negronis at £5 a pop before you eat (rising to £9.50 with food).
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent headed to the new casual offering from nearby Clove Club’s Isaac McHale, a modern European restaurant where everything is informal except the prices, which are “very much still wearing tuxes, cummerbunds and spats”.
“Watching the old guard of enfants terribles noughties Michelin chefs do ‘informal’ is all rather fascinating,” Grace noted. “These people flew in the face of formality over a decade ago, chipping away at all the stuffiness and forelock-tugging, and making dinner at the Ritz seem like a prison sentence. Now those same chefs are opening places like Bar Valette to show us how to be truly relaxed while paying £11 for a bowl of kale.”
The final straw was a piece of plastic her dining companion found in a plate of Spanish pork stew that cost £26. The waiter apologised and headed off the kitchen – but “no explanation is forthcoming, and the stew stays on the bill”.
*****
The Observer
TV personality Sandi Toksvig was this week’s guest reviewer, enjoying Sunday lunch in a 200-year-old village pub saved from closure last summer by a bunch of locals, where a “remarkable woman” named Stella Malone cooks wonderful traditional meals, working single-handedly in the kitchen.
“I expect Michelin or whoever rates these things would never even glance this way, but she is an artist,” Sandi reported.
A simple choice of roasts – beef, pork, chicken or nuts – brought “Sunday lunch perfection” to the table: “The juiciest of beef. Large slices. Rare in the middle. A small pillow of Yorkshire pudding. Roast potatoes as they should be, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. A whole carrot, a whole parsnip, extra bowls of creamy cauliflower cheese and deep red cabbage. Buttered greens and extra jugs of gravy.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
3 Gorges, Goodge Street
Vetch, Liverpool
Giles Coren was stagily coy about naming a new Chinese restaurant in London that has a set menu at £388 a head and is named after “one of the great Chinese environmental and human catastrophes of the 20th century” – which clearly identified it as the 3 Gorges in Goodge Street.
Giles – who chose the cheaper duck and abalone set menu at £139 – and was less than impressed by a meal of “dull spring rolls and dim sum of the ‘Mum’s gone to Iceland’ party pack variety”, followed by a portion of duck that was “horribly overcooked to a sort of sponginess and the cavity stuffed with all sorts of wrongness”.
He also reviewed a lunch at Vetch in Liverpool, which boasts “droolworthy” multi-course tasting menus in the evening but just three tiny courses for lunch. “It was all very nice indeed but, even in London, £45 would be a lot for what was very close to no food at all.”
***
Chitra Ramaswamy returned to a fusion café that graduated last year to new restaurant premises in Sciennes Road, where it remains “completely unique, completely true to itself, and, like everyone who eats there, I’m completely in love with it.”
Created by first-time restaurateur Jun Au, it mixes Korean, Chinese and European elements with Scottish produce, resulting in “enlightened combos such as slow-cooked short rib jjigae with polenta, har gao ravioloni, or red curry aubergine parmesan (four words you never expect to see together)”.
“Pomelo serves food that, as well as being delicious and distinctive, makes you think about the way ingredients, cultures and histories speak to one another. And then think again.” A case in point was the kimchi jjigae, a Korean stew made with beef featherblade from the Black Isle, which Chitra at first thought “tasted close, too close to a classic boeuf bourguignon”. But “by lunch next day it’s my own palate getting a bad review. The stew is subtly stacked with flavours from east and west, and fusion cuisine doesn’t have to beat you about the chops to make its point.”
***
Charlotte Ivers was shocked to find the second branch of this south Indian, from the team behind nearby pub conversions Tamil Prince and Tamil Crown, packed out at 6pm on a Monday. But there were good reasons for the crowd: “This lot know how to do their cocktails”, the roti was buttery and flaky, and the small plates extremely generous.
“The waiter suggests five to eight dishes for two to share, which is great salesmanship. You could order way below that and still walk away satisfied… One dosa would be enough if you had a train to catch.”
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles was less than impressed by a new Italian restaurant puzzlingly named after an inland town in Piedmont while claiming to offer an escape to the coastline of Amalfi, near Naples.
“Money hasn’t just been lavished on the place, but splashed and flashed and frittered and thrown”, he said, resulting in a “Berlusconi boudoir where the rococo lap-dances the baroque… a place so over the top that it makes Sexy Fish look like St John.”
Dish after dish arrived slathered in caviar, lavished with truffles or embellished with foie gras, while the less flashy offerings were just dull, dreary or “eminently forgettable”. “‘Alba Ristorante delivers indulgence in every mouthful,’ coos the website. Urgh. Indulgence il mio culo.”
*****
Financial Times
In his first review since joining the FT, Jay Rayner headed to London’s oldest restaurant, est. 1798 – a place where he has his own history. His late mother treated him lunch there almost 50 years ago, and he tasted his first oysters and Sancerre.
The restaurant has its own history, of course, but “has never been a prisoner of its history”.
“Rules bellows British, but in truth it has more in common with the great brasseries of Paris, places such as Bofinger and La Coupole, than it does with tatty pubs banging on about homegrown classics.” And, Jay added, a lot of the British dishes on the menu – Cornish crab salad, steak and kidney pudding – require “armfuls of French technique”.
“There are game chips, a fancy name for lattice crisps, hot from the deep-fat fryer. Anyone who does not love those has no business being in a restaurant”. To finish, a “glowing dome of steamed sponge pudding” that “manages to be both adult and childish. All the best desserts are.”
