Jay Rayner in The Observer finds the cooking at Roth Bar & Grill, Bruton – housed within the Hauser & Wirth gallery – more than a match for the art. “The whole proposition is so damn civilised that the quality of the cooking is an extra. The site, part of a working farm, is a pastoral […]
Jay Rayner in The Observer enjoys a knowing attempt to bring the street inside at Borough Market’s El Pastór (from Barrafina founders, the Hart bros)… It’s “a fun space of bare brick and shiny metal and colourful murals; a knowing attempt to bring the street inside”, with “tequilas in worryingly large servings” and “pork shoulder, marinated and […]
The Guardian’s Marina O’Laughlin is back in her native Glasgow, but the locals may not want to hear what she has to say about Dennistoun’s Bilson Eleven. “How dare I? How dare I be critical about a small, new indie restaurant, its name an elision of the chef/owner’s two sons (and the number of tables they, […]
It’s National Barbecue Week, so that means hunching over the rusty old Webber in your back garden with an umbrella – right? Not according to Giles Coren. He reviews Shoreditch’s Rök and Smokestak with such enthusiasm that he implores readers to visit one of these two smokehouses, rather than light the barbie in their own […]
⦿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner finds a trip to Soho’s new Test Kitchen rather hard work, but thankfully is able to salvage his day through the restorative power of pastry at Maison Bertaux… “The strawberry tart at Maison Bertaux in London’s Soho should be available on prescription as an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress. The sweet […]
Chefs past and present at Le Gavroche are receiving a Christmas bonus this year following Michel Roux Jr’s announcement that he will make up the shortfall owed to underpaid staff members. The payments, thought to be worth tens of thousands of pounds, follow revelations of underpayment at the Mayfair temple of gastronomy that have rumbled on for a […]
The Guardian’s Marina O’Laughlin once dismissed Balham’s Chez Bruce as ‘ultra-bourgeois and a little dated… onefor the Bufton-Tuftons, with their florid, claret-hoofing faces and fear of the new, I sniffed”. Not so anymore. The critic now seems to understand why it has been Harden’s reporters’ favourite restaurant for the past decade – “I’m forced to suspect […]
The Sunday Times’s AA Gill revisits Damien Hirst’s Pharmacy in its new form as Pharmacy 2 in Vauxhall and finds things have changed considerably since the Notting Hill original launched in 1998, when the opening was ‘like a red-carpet premiere, a mob of paparazzi and rubberneckers, double-parked limos, teeth and tits’. “I was surprised at […]
Five stars for food from AA Gill?! A rare occurrence indeed. The first British spin-off (in Covent Garden) of Les Halles restaurant Frenchie wows the Sunday Times critic… “Frenchie is that thing I’d almost given up hoping I would see again: a really, really good modern French bistro. Not nostalgic or revisionist, but a sensible, […]
AA Gill reviews Notting Hill’s new vegetarian restaurant Tiny Leaf in the Sunday Times but decides London still needs a decent veggie venue “It’s the good intentions that sink vegetative restaurants. They are selling the goodness of their intentions in the hope that you’re more interested in filling the karma bank than your stomach. The […]
