A “very underwhelming” City-fringe basement where (as usual) MPW-branding portends nothing particularly positive – indeed, with its “bistro food at restaurant prices” some reporters think the place is just a plain “rip-off”.
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Marco Pierre White – the former enfant terrible of English cooking, and the man who supposedly made Gordon Ramsay cry – can be a vexing person to write about. He sometimes seems to have little ...
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Press Reviews (2)
Jay Rayner (18th May 2009)
Oh dear, seems it’s getting personal. The critic leaves the new City chophouse with an urge to throw darts at the photo of MPW which appears on the menu. Why? Simple: “almost everything we ate was awful”. (Not quite sure about Jay’s analysis, though: if the place really “sells food aimed at red-blooded hedge fund managers”, it’s surely located in entirely the wrong place. Hedgies are much more likely to be seen in Mayfair, St James’s or Belgravia than in the City.)
Marina O'Loughlin (30th April 2009)
2/5 stars
Ms O’M is very good on the celebrity chef phenomenon, and her characterisation of Marco’s recent TV show really hits the spot. “[W]ho cares [who won]?”, she says. “The programme doesn't even try to be about food any more. Throughout the show, MPW wandered about, bouncing between shticks: vaguely lobotomised guru; frantic Jimmy Savilesque bully; piercing-gazed laydeez man; gurning bro-mancer. Of the culinary genius this man undoubtedly is, there was little trace.” Sadly, it turns out that “[t]he same could be said for his ‘new’ [City] restaurant”. “Why am I increasingly compelled to surmise that everything this superbly talented chef does nowadays is less about the cooking and more about the dosh – Knorr what I mean?”
Jay Rayner (18th May 2009)
Marina O'Loughlin (30th April 2009)
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