“Awesome” home-roasted coffee, and “brilliant” Antipodean breakfasts inspire many raves for this “busy” but chilled Clerkenwell café; its main, fusion-tapas menu is also “full of interesting ideas”, and realisation – though it can be slightly “hit-and-miss” – is often “top notch”.
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Too many restaurants in London in recent times have specialised in the known-and-usual. It’s understandable enough in hard economic times, but it’s getting a bit dull nonetheless. So all credit...
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Press Reviews (4)
Fay Maschler (25th March 2010)
4/5 stars
Another critic impressed by the Kiwi-run newcomer, where “New Zealand is a state of mind apparent the minute you walk [in]”. After two visits to the restaurant, which “by no means exhausted appealing choices in the list of small plates”, she finds “dish components are put together tactfully and felicitously, with a rationale that has reference to taste buds and memories”. With “welcoming and clued-up staff” to boot, “Caravan is diverting, relaxing, keen on everyone having a good time and rationally priced”.
Marina O'Loughlin (25th March 2010)
3/5 stars
“[C]lean, fresh, and staffed by enchanting, helpful and attractive people” - more praise for the Exmouth Market newcomer that has “already found a hugely appreciative audience”. The menu, “crammed with intriguing stuff” generally pleases, although the more “ambitious” dishes, such as blue cheese and peanut wantons, can “struggle a little”. Top marks too for coffee, ground and roasted on site in a “wonderfully bonkers-looking apparatus in the basement”.
John Walsh (14th March 2010)
Food 3/5 stars, Ambience 2/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars
A review of a “something-for-everyone eaterie”, in Clerkenwell, “conceived on easy-going, Australian lines”. The critics enjoys a range of fusion dishes in which he is “impressed by the subtlety with which each dish boldly yoked heterogeneous flavours together”. Despite “an air of confusion about the menu and some of the dishes”, he concludes that “it's a good restaurant, the décor cool and minimalist, the waiters attentive...and the food mostly delicious” - even if it doesn't always quite hit the mark.
Charmaine Mok (4th March 2010)
4/5 stars
The critics visits an Exmouth Market newcomer that “already feels as if it’s been open for months”, and finds “the service is likeable, the food inspired and the coffee shaping up to be very good indeed.”
Miles Kirby was the head chef at Providores, the original London fusion restaurant. The theme continues here in this trendy Exmouth Market location. "Small plates" were mostly priced from £5-£7, "large plates" £15, desserts around £6.
Fay Maschler (25th March 2010)
Marina O'Loughlin (25th March 2010)
John Walsh (14th March 2010)
Charmaine Mok (4th March 2010)
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