Manson

Press Reviews (5)

• Andy Lynes (22nd April 2010)
  2/5 stars
  
  Disappointment for the critic on every level from this Fulham restaurant – the latest perch of Ramsay protégée Gemma Tuley, who has generally received good reviews for her stints both here and elswhere. Service is “unengaging”, décor “pleasant but unremarkable”, and the cuisine is “too bland to be memorable”. Special mention is reserved for a “nicely presented rump of Elwy Valley lamb...so severely undercooked that any collie dog worth its salt could have herded it back into the kitchen.”
• John Walsh (12th April 2010)
  Food 4/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars, Ambience 3/5 stars
  
  “[I]t was a revelation, a love affair between young and old, ancient and modern, experience and innocence. Such subtlety! Such a change from all the chefs trying to yoke a dozen flavours together by violence!” It's not just the braised pork belly that impresses the critic at Gemma Tuley's “warm and welcoming” Fulham restaurant, which “irradiates an old-fashioned array of rustic chairs and tables, a long way from the townie pretensions of haute cuisine”. Other highlights from a rather “brusque” menu include scallops -“a paradisiacal wedding of seafood flavours” - and “fresh and delicious” sea bass. As for dessert, “you're taken beyond bliss and words to realms of le petit mort”.
• Zoe Williams (22nd February 2010)
  9/10
  
  “You have to be impressed when a restaurant is full, midweek, on a miserable night in the middle of February”, and – certainly on the food front – the critic finds the popularity of this Fulham operation fully justified. Impluasibly, a Jerusalem artichoke cheesecake – “incredible from top to bottom” – is a particular hit.
• Guy Dimond (11th February 2010)
  4/5 stars
  
  “Manson is that rare thing in London: a place where the sophistication of the food easily outstrips its casual, bistro-style setting”, says the critic. Service and setting can jar but, “to compensate, there’s Gemma Tuley’s food”. Ms Tuley was last checked out by the chef when she was working at the “critically panned revamp of Foxtrot Oscar… a bistro of disappointing banality. But at Manson, Tuley’s showing us what she’s capable of when unfettered in the kitchen”.
• Fay Maschler (14th January 2010)
  3/5 stars
  
  The new Fulham venture where the chef is Gemma Tuley – an ex-Ramsay chef who has, remarkably, decided to expunge “Big Sweary” from her cv – impresses the critic. She finds a “classically trained chef working in a casual environment sending out well-informed food… at last something a bit different and with some decent prices”.