Definitely a game of two halves this week, with disappointments for TPB, the Evening Standard reviewers and Jay Rayner, and serious highs for Grace Dent and our intrepid reporters from The Telegraph and The FT.
Jay Rayner in The Observer pondered the ” thin line between “That’s genius” and “What in God’s name were they thinking?”” at St Leonards, and declared it perfect for food-obsessed Instagrammers – certainly not a place for those who “want… a relaxing dinner, over unchallenging food”: it’s “so cutting edge you could slice your arm off on it”.
St Leonards certainly looks good, from the Game-of-Thrones-esque interior (and owners) and clever food prepared beautifully, “like a pointillist has been at work on your dinner”. Much of it tastes good too, including a tuna bone caramel (not “a prog rock band from Sunderland circa 1975″ but ” something complicated with tuna bones, sugar and stock until it forms a sweet, sticky fish sauce”). But Jay was often left with the feeling that “certain dishes leave you wondering if that was what they intended”.
To sum up: “not so much a meal out as a funfair ride”. Some of you will love it, some of you won’t.
Grace Dent’s visit for The Guardian to Gareth Ward at Ynishir (another top scorer at 28/30) south of Snowdonia was born out of “stubborn mischief“. She figured that anywhere that requires a “400-mile round trip and offered only a 19-course tasting menu” must be worth investigating, even if dinner “would last a minimum of four hours“, you may only stay one night and there’s no room service: the “ sheer obstreperousness of it all made me hellbent on visiting Planet Gareth“.
By the time the ” sublime and unforgettable” ‘Not French OnionSoup’ had been served, Grace was already in love, despite a menu that sometimes “feels like a physical assault… nothing over the first 14 or so courses is creamy or soothing”. Ward’s non-traditional methods shone through all the way through to the six puddings (which included a “bedazzling take on tiramisu”): “a culinary landscape flavoured with pickled leaves, rotting roots, fruit stocks or mackerel bones”.
Even the staff win praise: “Ynyshir’s small team are a hugely lovable bunch, too” but most of the love is reserved for the “unique” place and Gareth Ward himself – he “cooks for himself, not the customers, and long may his delicious pigheadedness continue”.
In The Evening Standard this week James Hansen was surprised and disappointed by a visit to Temper Covent Garden (4.5/10), which is anaemic in comparison to the “delicious ruckus” of the Soho original (all “salt, grease, acid, heat and careless gluttony”).
The new-build location was “soulless rather than stirring” and the entire experience a game of “Google Trends Whac-A-Mole”: “it promised thrilling nuance and nuclear collision. It delivered neither.”
Despite “flickers of life”, James detected “no heart, no vigour, no joy” from “a menu that reads so much better than it eats”.
Regular Evening Standard reviewer David Sexton visited Neptune (**) at The Principal, formerly Hotel Russell before the £85 million refurb. It seems to have already succumbed to the age-old rule that “hotels need to have restaurants but they’re a curse and rarely work out”.
Even the import of East London ‘edge’, in the form of the duo who ran “cult seafood pub The Richmond in Haggerston” can’t seem to save Neptune: it “feels like… a hotel restaurant”.
Their “efforts are defeated by the scale and ornateness of the place” – what “might seem boho and funkily salvaged in Hackney… here appear[s] tired”.
Most of the fish-centric dishes (from a menu with “a raw-bar emphasis similar to that of The Richmond”) “were nice enough, and the fish well-cooked, but they lacked punch”. It’s early days for The Principal, though, and David end the review on a magnanimous note: “you can see why you would want to bring a Hackney attitude into this unfocused zone, and it will be interesting to see how it works out.”
Micheal Deacon‘s Telegraph review of Crocker’s Table in Tring started off with an off-topic rant about star ratings, and ended in applause: “at the end of the meal, everyone in the room clapped”
He may have dodged a hellish trip to Bicester Shopping Village last week, but payback came in the form of a zero-star rating (his first ever?) for new Mayfair ‘clubstaurant’ Bagatelle from Tom Parker Bowles in The Daily Mail.
He begins with a prolonged rant (not his first) on truffle oil “that hateful, heinous ingredient… a scourge, a blight, a pestilence and plague” that soon segues into an attack on the decor “vast space, filled with bad art and worse atmosphere… rubbish Euro dance music ” which apparently “stinks of truffle oil, fake tan and testosterone-laden despair”.
The food, ” apparently inspired by the food of Provence”, is extravagantly overpriced (pizza is £34) and lavishly dressed: ” very few things are allowed to leave the kitchen without a daub of truffle or foie gras or caviar. Luxury ingredients, you know.”
“This is a place so awful that even its mother couldn’t love it. Yet it’s bound to survive… such is the law of the Mayfair jungle… I have found hell. And its name is Bagatelle.” Poor Tom.
For The Financial Times, Tim Hayward declared Wilsons restaurant in Bristol to be “an irreplaceably wonderful experience”; a place where the food there will “want to make you weep with joy”.
