Commander

Press Reviews (5)

• Marina O'Loughlin (5th June 2009)
  2/5 stars
  
  Marina finds a “suffocating smugness” at this Bayswater spot, which is full of “laboured conceits” – from the references to “vintage American steak-n-seafood houses” (“loads of dark, pubby wood panelling” and waitstaff in full “white apron drag”) to the menu. “So much attention is being given to pointless details that essentials are overlooked” – resulting in a meal that ranges from “bearable” to “revolting”.
• AA Gill (9th March 2009)
  2/5 stars
  
  At this Bayswater newcomer, the menu is “short, lively [and] confusing, but fine for a room that still maintains its pubbishness”, says the critic. “This isn’t a place you travel to for the food, but you’d be perfectly happy to eat here if you were coming to meet friends.” “What it badly needs”, however, “is an awful lot more people, possibly colonials, having a noisy and louche time”.
• Guy Dimond (25th February 2009)
  2/6 stars
  
  “High prices are nothing unusual in London, but the combination with some disappointing dishes explains The Commander's low star rating”, says TO’s head man. This may be a “friendly” place, with an “imaginative” wine list, but otherwise he finds this informal Bayswater joint quite a let-down.
• Terry Durack (23rd February 2009)
  11/20
  
  The Indie’s man “[does] not get” this “lively, loud and young” Bayswater newcomer (about which Ms Maschler recently raved), finding it a jack of all trades. The produce may be “fine throughout”, and “the wine list has plenty of options by the glass and carafe” and the floor staff are “lovely”, but “the offerings don’t really rise much above food-court level”. Overall, the place gave the critic a “strange sense of being in some expatriate manifestation of a gastropub/chophouse in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall; something rigorously copied and in working order but not quite the real thing”.
• Fay Maschler (11th February 2009)
  4/5 stars
  
  What has got into Ms Maschler? This week, she gives her second consecutive four-star award. She’s never handed out five stars in living memory, and usually hands out a four-star about once a month. Concerning last week’s review (Dolada), we expressed a doubt as to “whether her description really paints what you might call a four -star picture”, and it’s just the same again this week. She clearly enjoyed her visits, but it’s really not at all clear what it is that – apparently – made this informal Bayswater newcomer rather special.