“A sense of drama” heightens a visit to this eighth-floor “haven” – “the most wonderful spot”, with “super views”, and also, of course, “huge roof gardens for a romantic pre-prandial stroll”; shame it “trades on its location”, though – the food is “dull”, and the prices are “daylight robbery”.
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Richard Branson’s relaunched Kensington restaurant is now claimed to have “‘a dramatic new interior reminiscent of the iconic fashion brand Biba’, the legendary designer store that once graced the same building”, but the critic opines that it is “less iconic Biba and more ironic flouncemeister Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen… It looks like it's been done on a Changing Rooms budget to resemble a Bromley branch of Oasis”. Service is “gratingly overfamiliar”, too, and – in the absence of any set menu – the critic endures “a lunch of deeply questionable quality that costs an arm and a leg”.
Mark Bolland (2nd July 2007)
ES Magazine’s critic reviews the recently-revamped restaurant above the old Derry & Toms department store. Plus ça change…, it seems. Service was “incredibly disorganised”, shellfish were “peculiarly chewy”, new potatoes had been “battered in salt” and the plates “didn't fit on the table”. The critic and his friend just end up in a dash “to get out of the place”.
Marina O'Loughlin (17th December 2008)
Mark Bolland (2nd July 2007)
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