“For the amazing roof terrace” alone, it’s worth a visit to this “large” and “glamorous” – but sometimes “lifeless” – venue, near Oxford Circus (sibling to ‘aqua kyoto’, see also); more generally, though, the standards – including of the Spanish cuisine – are indifferent.
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Here’s a profound thought: restaurants exist in space and time. Space is pretty obvious. If you want a Eurotrash-style outfit, you’re unlikely to deviate far from the South Ken-Mayfair axis. I...
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Press Reviews (3)
Carolyn Hart (24th June 2010)
Despite a turbulent past with a certain well-known critic, Aqua Nueva has fought to earn its place this year. This critic thinks that with Alberto Hernández at the helm the menu “has plenty to recommend (itself )” even with the unreliable prospect of an “eccentric fusion of Japanese and Spanish food”. The decor is not so commendable - a teen's dream - “you almost expect Harry and Chelsy to leap out from behind the artfully arranged pillars and tables bearing overwrought candelabra on a nightly basis”.
AA Gill (14th December 2009)
1/5 stars
“This week, a straight, professional restaurant review” – there’s a sentiment you don’t expect to find only half-way through one of this critic’s pieces. Reassuringly, however, he then spends much of the remainder obsessing about the “thousands of turned wooden things” that decorate the place, and concludes that “[t]his is the first restaurant for ages that has been seriously poisoned by its decoration.”
Fay Maschler (1st October 2009)
2/5 stars
The critic visits the just-opened Spanish restaurant at the top of the former Dickins & Jones store on Regent Street. Her heart sinks when she learns of the chef’s stint at El Bulli, but is pleased to find a menu that’s “relatively conservative in style and... quite restrained in price.” She notes, however, that whilst “Spanish cooking is the cuisine of the moment... it is tricky to get right”, and not all the dishes on her first visit succeed. On her second visit she tries the terrace and the tapas, which is “served slowly and with ceremony” (“managing completely to miss the point about tapas”), and again, the dishes don’t quite work. The shortcomings of the food combined with the “bland verging on bleak, shopping mall interior” and “unnecessary formality” all make for a “disappointing outing”.
Carolyn Hart (24th June 2010)
AA Gill (14th December 2009)
Fay Maschler (1st October 2009)
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