Wild Honey

Press Reviews (9)

• David Sexton (24th July 2008)
  4/5 stars
  
  “By common consent”, says the critic, “the restaurants offering the best-value set lunches in London are sister restaurants Arbutus in Soho and Wild Honey on the Mayfair side of Regent Street. The menus may not alter much with the seasons, but he finds they pretty much live up to their billing.
• Matthew Norman (19th September 2007)
  9/10 points
  
  Arbutus-duo Anthony Demetre and Will Smith “just get better and better”, says Mr. Norman. He finds their “sparkling” Mayfair newcomer serves “outstanding” and “perfectly balanced” food.
• Terry Durack (13th August 2007)
  15/20 points
  
  Like most of the reviewers to date, Mr Durack is satisfied with his visit to this Mayfair newcomer, which offers “all that is good about Arbutus… in a more comfortable and charming package”.
• John Walsh (6th August 2007)
  Food 4/5 stars; Ambience 3/5 stars; Service 3/5 stars
  
  Arbutus’s offshoot is “obviously destined to become the house canteen of the seraphic fashionistas from Vogue House around the corner, although there's nothing very girlish about it”, opines the Indie’s man. He raves about the food at this “haven of heady flavours” in a way no one else has so far – not least the “sensational” puddings – and leaves “wreathed in bonhomie”.
• Giles Coren (6th August 2007)
  Meat/fish: 7/10 points; Cooking: 7/10 points; Room: 8/10 points; Water: 5 (something English, I forget what); Price: You can get out fine for £100 per head.
  
  We get Giles's view on the meal he had with AA Gill (see last week’s review): a rare textbook example of two leading reviewers covering the same meal. Giles is a little more explictly upbeat, but, in ratings terms they both come to the same slightly guarded conclusion.
• AA Gill (23rd July 2007)
  3/5 stars
  
  Love seems to have broken out anew in the critic world, and Adrian Gill is again at the centre of it. This time, he’s taking Giles Coren out for dinner “because I wanted to get some tips on how to do this job properly”. Coren, concludes Gill, “is the food critic’s food critic, encompassing the shoulder-shaking humour of Matthew Fort, the modest expertise of Michael Winner, the literary pyrotechnics of Jay Rayner, and the dress sense of Charles Campion”. There you have it: love in the critic world.
• Mark Palmer (17th July 2007)
  8/10 points
  
  A combination of “sublime” cooking and “exemplary” pricing wins something of a rave from the Telegraph’s man, in the most enthusiastic of the reviews to date of the son-of-Arbutus.
• Fay Maschler (17th July 2007)
  3/5 stars
  
  The newish Chelsea spot is, concludes the critic, aimed at “the ladies of the Royal Borough who lunch.” “It's big on small things - salads, soups, sandwiches - with a few token, meaty items on the à la carte menu to appeal to a man's inner Desperate Dan”. “As a place to lunch in Kensington” [which it isn’t, technically speaking], Kicca “is competing in a crowded field, and does not seem to be winning”. “I don't think Daphne's and the other Draycott Avenue haunts of monied females need to look to their laurels any time soon.”
• Marina O’Loughlin (17th July 2007)
  3/5 stars
  
  The Metro’s critic feels that with “the amount of honeyed wood panelling and beautiful original features” on display at Wild Honey, “you can't really go wrong”. “If it doesn't quite deliver the excitement of Arbutus”, she muses, “maybe it's because we've now seen its like before”. Her party liked everything they ate, though, even if some of the puds “had a touch of the Little Chef to them”.