Most of the (surprisingly few) early-days reports on this new Chelsea Italian (on the ex-Papillon, RIP, site) share our repeated experience that it’s a “friendly” place, offering “fresh” food in a “smart” and “lively” setting; there’s also a small band of critics, though, who just find it “average” across the board.
STOP PRESS: This restaurant closed in early March 2012.
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Don’t they have enough Italian restaurants round Brompton Cross? Undaunted, the owners of Papillon – a rather useful French restaurant, we always thought – have recently re-named it, and re-l...
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Press Reviews (1)
Fay Maschler (17th January 2011)
4/5 stars
Oh, aren’t you lucky to have the whole restaurant to yourselves,” said a handsome waiter at Ilia last week. Well, luckier than you thought. There is surely nothing more dispiriting than standing around with little to do other than top up already full glasses of water. In that first week after the Christmas and New Year hols not only do people stop drinking, they seem hardly to go out at all. We’d passed several completely empty restaurants on the way to what was previously Papillon in South Kensington.
Fay Maschler (17th January 2011)
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