Monsieur Le Duck, London E1 Jay Rayner for The Observer visited the nostalgic new pop-up from City worker-turned-restaurateur Richard Humphreys, who dreamed of Gascony, with its restaurants serving duck confit and red wine, and decided to bring his dreams to Liverpool Street. The result is “delightful in a low-key, sweetly romantic way”; the “narrow frame […]
Olle, London W1 Jay Rayner for The Observer became the living window display he has so often admired when he dined at Olle, a Korean barbeque joint on Shaftesbury Avenue. The menu at Olle will be “broadly familiar” to those have tended to their own hotplate before – here, “they just do it very well” […]
Pucci, London W1 Jay Rayner for The Observer reviewed Mayfair newcomer Pucci, revived from its bygone King’s Road days by the founder’s son (the original closed in 2010). Decorated like “a wealthy person’s version of a humble farmhouse”, it’s the sort of room “in which you can have a very good time, though ideally with […]
Imperial Treasure, London SW1 Did the chefs at Imperial Treasure recognise Jay Rayner when he visited for The Observer? They chased him to the toilet, so one presumes so. Why then, did they take away his Peking duck (for which he paid a “nose-bleeding… shameless” £100) half-eaten? Astonishing. It tainted the rest of his meal, […]
The Telegraph’s new critic visits a vegan restaurant, Giles Coren finds two great new Oxford restaurants, and another critic jumps the queue at Din Tai Fung Gridiron, London SW1 Jay Rayner for The Observer found himself at the former The Met Bar location for his first review of 2019; it’s “has worked hard at the […]
Lino, London EC1 Jay Rayner for The Observer saved one of the best until last – for him, Lino turned out to be “among my top places of the year”. It’s “dancing on the knife edge of modernity”; “so much of what they do bellows 2018.” His review also rounds up the rest of his […]
Jay Rayner for The Observer waited for 20 minutes at Restarant 92 before any food arrived on the table – and that was just bread. He’d been delayed on the train and was very cold – not the best start. Luckily, Micheal Carr’s cooking won him over, with its “fun ideas”, “enthusiasm” and “admirable risks”. […]
Grace Dent for The Guardian visited yet another home-from-home seaside location, this time in Kent; where she had to invent a new term for the “imperfectly perfect” (so much so that she wanted to “ditch the review to protect it from idiots”) type of restaurant she found there – the “Snuffly-Ligget”. It’s a “small, 26-seat, […]
The Little Chartroom, Edinburgh Marina O’Loughlin for The Sunday Times warily reviewed “small neighbourhood bistro” The Little Chartroom – it’s just the sort of place she’d hate to slate. Luckily, with all credit to chef Roberta Hall and her husband, Shaun McCarron, she didn’t have to. “Exciting soup” to start (“two words I didn’t think […]
Grace Dent for The Guardian travelled down to Penzance to visit the Mexico Inn, a “fun pub for families”, whose name “is perhaps unhelpful if you stop by hoping for enchiladas and tequila” – it’s a traditional Cornish pub run by an ex-Gurnard’s Head couple who have clearly set up “the type of intensely relaxed, […]
