York & Albany

Press Reviews (8)

• Marina O'Loughlin (10th December 2008)
  3/5 stars
  
  The critic visits the “roaring success” which is Gordon Ramsay’s latest venture… And wow, does it look good”. She finds the place “heaving with a curious mixture of trade: tables of elderly, intellectual types next to pierced, scowling chaps. Ah, Camden. Most anomalous in these surroundings are the Big Sweary groupies: you can tell them by their sprayed, frosted tresses and tight leopard-print tops”. Service is “frazzled” by the pressure though, and the food is, which often comes in “teeny” portions, “is better at [the] unassuming Market [restaurant] down the road”.
• David Sexton (12th November 2008)
  5/5 stars
  
  No messing about here: the lunch menu at Gordon Ramsay’s new Camden Town operation simply offers “the best value in town”, says the critic – “ridiculously cheap for the quality”. Already, however, it seems that the infamous Ramsay price-creep is in operation: “Until last week, the three-course set lunch was £15 [and it would have been] good value at twice the price”. “Now the menu has changed and the price has risen to £18.”
• Giles Coren (10th November 2008)
  9/10
  
  The cooking may be “middle-brow”, but it’s “[p]erfectly done”, says the critic, who’s swept away by the Ramsay/Hartnett make-over of this Camden Town boozer.
• AA Gill (4th November 2008)
  3/5 stars
  
  This Camden Town newcomer “is run by Gordon Ramsay Holdings, but the cook is Angela Hartnett, late of the Connaught”, say the critic. (He asserts, by the way, that she “isn’t cooking at her other new restaurant, Murano”.) He had “been told great things about this place”, but “why anyone wants to stay in Parkway, Camden, is beyond me”, and the restaurant turns out to be a “small, awkward room”, with a menu offering “[r]easonable rather than amazing value, considering… a bit of a bland jog round comfort-zone ingredients and predictable combinations”.
• John Walsh (20th October 2008)
  Food 4/5 stars, Ambience 3/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars
  
  John Walsh records a “stunning” meal at Gordon Ramsay’s “handsome” revamped pub – now “a bar and a hotel” – although he finds the “depressingly-lit” restaurant (decorated in “a horribly muted 1950s shade”) lacks the attraction of the “exceptionally posh American bar” which is “so cool, you feel pleased with yourself just walking in and ordering a gin and tonic”. At Murano, the critic “couldn’t detect many signs of genius” of chef Angela Hartnett’s food, but here (where she oversees the kitchens) “triumphant dishes” are “beautifully cooked, heftily flavoured, lightly sauced, imaginatively presented and lovingly served”.
• Guy Dimond (8th October 2008)
  5/6 stars
  
  Another month, another 5/6 star award from TO’s head man, who seems to be in a very benign phase at the moment. That’s not to say he’s by any means alone in his praise for the latest Ramsay/Hartnett venture, with which he gets quite carried away: it not only “oozes glamour at the northern end of grimy Parkway”, but also “oozes bonhomie and wealth”. Enough oozing already! Everything, in short, was pretty much perfect. But then “Gordon Ramsay was there, schmoozing and glad-handing tame journalists and assorted hangers-on. But there’s no need – York & Albany will do brilliantly on its own merit, without the need for any Ramsay X-factor this time”.
• Richard Vines (8th October 2008)
  3/4 stars
  
  The financial news service’s man finds the Camden Town venture “potentially exciting”, if decorated in a “polite” style, “reminiscent of those television shows where property owners are advised to avoid the funky for fear of alienating anyone”. (“It's not without a touch of the B&Q home-improvement business, as if money ran short when it came to fittings.”) On the cuisine front, however, what’s of most note is the “precision” of Angela Hartnett’s cooking (and those who go for the £15 set lunch get “London's greatest dining bargain”). “[A]s new Ramsay-backed restaurants go, [this is] the pick of the bunch. Well done, Angela.”
• David Sexton (2nd October 2008)
  4/5 stars
  
  “Camden just got lucky”. The critic – first with the news of the relaunch of this “handsome old coaching inn” – sings the praises of the latest addition to the Ramsay empire, where the design is a “convincing blend of antique and contemporary”, and where the food is “hugely enjoyable”. The wine list is “intelligent”, and the place benefits from “a different feel from Ramsay’s other restaurants and gastropubs”.