Gallery Mess, Saatchi Gallery

Press Reviews (8)

• Jasper Gerard (21st September 2009)
  2/5
  
  The critic wonders why, in a gallery known for its ability to shock, the food served is “bland, bland bland”. This Kings Road café has prices that “scream ‘restaurant’”, but “boring food and bored waiters” which do not justify them. He finds the place has “clinical” feel, is frustrated by the “monotonous” food, and “exasperated” by the slow service. “[G]o elsewhere”, he tells us, “try a new diet, starve a bit, but don't eat here.”
• Zoe Williams (10th August 2009)
  6/10
  
  Lunch in the restaurant attached to Chelsea’s Saatchi Gallery is, we are told, like eating in “a great big glorified corridor”, but one with “a very festive atmosphere.” The food is “a long way from terrible”, but the critic comes away feeling “betrayed” – “[t]his is meant to be the final word in London culture” but “[i]t just wasn’t quite there”.
• Marina O'Loughlin (7th August 2009)
  3/5 stars
  
  Progress has been ripping the guts out of Chelsea for decades now. The King's Road, once home to the quirkiest shops and the best people-watching outside of that bar in Star Wars, has steadily become more and more homogenised. With its Starbucks and chains, vast swathes of it could be anywhere in the 'civilised' world.
• AA Gill (6th July 2009)
  3/5 stars
  
  Mr Gill visits the recently-opened restaurant attached to the Saatchi Gallery on the Kings Road. He dines al fresco, and doesn’t think that sitting inside – in the “awkward cafe space in a colonnade” – “would be anything like as attractive”. The food, by the caterers Rhubarb, is “generous and nicely made”, and “bordering on really quite good.”
• Marina O'Loughlin (3rd July 2009)
  
  This Spanish venture in Marylebone has a “bustling, hugely attractive tapas bar” on the ground floor, and a fine dining room upstairs, where the critic dines. “[T]he menu is divided into ‘Classicos’ [and] more innovative dishes.” Everything she eats from the ‘Classicos’ side of the menu “is among the best Spanish food to be found in London”, whereas the dishes from the “nouveau side” are “undercooked” and “spooky”. The “ugliness” of the room and “the noise from downstairs” leaves her wanting to try the groundfloor tapas bar next time – “that’s where the fun is”.
• Guy Dimond (3rd July 2009)
  4/5 stars
  
  The critic recommends eating al fresco at this “fabulous new brasserie”, attached to Chelsea’s new Saatchi Gallery (where there are tables until 6 pm, weather permitting). The fare is “simple”, with some “more ambitious specials”, and – produced by catering company Rhubarb – many “dishes looked like overgrown canapes”. Although the mains sampled are inconsistent, dessert – knickerbocker glory – is “a triumph”. Service is “over-attentive”, but, he believes, “likely to calm down after the initial opening nerves.” And that’s a four-star review?
• John Walsh (22nd June 2009)
  Food 3/5 stars, Ambience 4/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars
  
  The critic dines at the restaurant of the new (Chelsea) Saatchi Gallery. “The dinner menu is laughably small” and “main courses hum with predictability”, but he concedes that “the quality of cooking is much higher than you'd expect to find in a gallery restaurant.” He can see that “[t]he owners have put a lot of money, style and panache” into the restaurant, from the “sophistication” of the décor. It is a “long, airy, white-walled, glass-fronted” place, which, he predicts, will be packed “when the sun's out”.
• Fay Maschler (21st May 2009)
  4/5 stars
  
  “When something that is usually done rather miserably is done extremely well, rejoicing breaks out”, proclaims the critic. The catering at institutions such as art galleries has always been notoriously poor. According to Ms Maschler, the solution - to hire an “expert in bespoke catering” that creates “edible works of art” - is in evidence here (as it is at the dining room of the recently reopened Whitechapel Gallery). She enjoys almost all the food she samples during her two visits, and likes the “lean and clean” design too.