Terroirs

Press Reviews (12)

• Giles Coren (15th February 2010)
  7.67
  
  Having initially stayed away from what he thought was a “glorified grog shop”, the critic joins the foodie bandwagon and takes to this Gallic wine bar/restaurant near Charing Cross, enjoying the “first-rate” food and “excellent”wine.
• Fay Maschler (29th October 2009)
  4/5 stars
  
  “Imagine every London Tube station with a terrific restaurant attached” and you get a “heavenly” glimpse of the future, according to Fay Maschler as she visits the newly-opened downstairs restaurant section of this much-lauded Charing Cross wine bar. It has a basement doorway to the tube below and is decked out with “agreeable Froggy tat”, comfortable banquettes and larger tables that “encourage and enable sharing”. According to the critic it holds much the same “terrific” appeal as the bar above; a “fascinating wine list” and food from “an English chef who distils what we believe we like about French food better than the French.” It’s a rave: “I may have tasted a better fish soup … but, if so, I can't place it.” (But “beware – the natural wines are not cheap”.)
• Guy Dimond (29th October 2009)
  5/5 stars
  
  On his visit to the basement dining room of this Charing Cross wine bar, the critic is pleased to discover that “[t]he kitchen is still very much on form despite the extra workload”. As in the bar, a kitchen capable of “magnificence” offers “a selection of ‘small plates’” – for example a terrine that was “robust, coarse-textured, and exploded with flavour” – plus main dishes which are “even bolder… ethereal… brilliant”! All this, plus “passionate” and “very well-informed” service and an “exceptional” wine list. (Just beware the ‘natural wines’: those he tries are invariably unpleasant.)
• Jay Rayner (3rd September 2009)
  
  Arguably rather late in the day (having already been extensively critiqued elsewhere), a review of a wine bar/bistro, just off the Strand, that’s “doing a roaring trade” thanks to its “earthy and French” dishes and “eclectic selection of wines”.
• AA Gill (15th June 2009)
  3/5 stars
  
  “[E]very year I travel to the south of France, principally for a peach”, the critic tells us. “ There are worse lexicons to measure your life by than ripe white peaches.” Hmm. Turning to the restaurant of the week, he visits a new Covent Garden French establishment which has been quite a ‘rave’ for many reviewers. He finds that the food is is indeed “really good”. The concept, though, he finds “confusing”, and “Spanish”. Really?
• Jasper Gerard (8th June 2009)
  5/5
  
  The critic awards full marks to “[t]he best wine bar/bistro I've found in years”, which opened last year just off Trafalgar Square. He deems the “French tapas” on offer “fabulous” and “a bargain”, and is “won over by the incredible selection” of wines, “much of it reasonably priced”. Even the service (which has been criticised for being “aloof”) he considers “charming in that slightly pouty Parisian way”.
• Matthew Norman (27th April 2009)
  9.5/10
  
  “You may be deliriously happy with your local bistro, but that’s only because you don't have a Terroirs of your own”, says the critic, who is swept away by this Gallic newcomer near Trafalgar Square. The chef, Ed Wilson, is “a name to watch”. “[D]espite its English cook and English wine merchant ownership, [Terroirs] has the simplicity, honesty and gift for producing whacking great flavours at affordable prices of the truly authentic, first-class French bistro.” “[I]f ever a lone venture had a moral obligation to become a national chain, this is it”, he concludes. (That was a joke, right?)
• Marina O'Loughlin (25th February 2009)
  2/5 stars
  
  On two visits, the critic has rather disparate experiences of this room, near Charing Cross, which “looks like a French-themed caff attached to a railway station”. The first visit was “perfectly blissful”, but, on the second visit the place seems to be suffering from its crticially-induced success. “The scene [is now] very different: a roiling, heaving mass of chuntering punters, jostling and noshing and glugging with abandon”, and she has “a properly rubbish evening”, thanks mainly, it seems, to undue delays, and condescending service.
• Tracey MacLeod (23rd February 2009)
  Food 4/5 stars, Ambience 3/5 stars, Service 4/5 st
  
  “[H]ow has a small wine bar, which opened last autumn with almost no publicity, somehow become the hit of the moment?”, muses the critic. “Tucked away in commuter-land between Trafalgar Square and The Strand, down one of those side streets that will always owe more to the Lyons Corner House than Lyon, Terroirs is packing them in.” And, she tells us, “it’s doing so almost entirely through word-of-mouth recommendations”. This is, as two seconds on Google reveals, nonsense – there have been very positive reviews in, inter alia, the Evening Standard, Time Out, Harden’s and, er, the Indie on Sunday. Anyway, the reason for the place’s success turns out to be that it’s “that rarest of rare beasts, an atmospheric little place serving great food and wine at terrifically reasonable prices”.
• Terry Durack (16th February 2009)
  16/20
  
  “Together with Soho’s Bocca di Lupo, Terroirs raises casual, small-plate dining to a whole new level.” So concludes the Independent’s man, who loves the “entwining” of “great, pure and simple” food (from ex-Galvin chef Ed Wilson) with “great, pure and natural” wines (from backers Les Caves du Pryène) at this “split-level wine bar tucked away of the Strand”. The “deliciously written” list particularly excites him, as does (“joy of joys”) the fact that its “devoted to ‘natural’ wines from small, committed artisan growers who work sustainably, organically or biodynamically”.
• Jenni Muir (7th January 2009)
  5/6 stars
  
  The critic finds “sensational” food at this “noisy” and “informal” new Gallic bistro near Charing Cross. “Ignore the five-star rating if you want” says the critic (rather unnecessarily defensively, we’d have thought), “but check the other reviews online, and you’ll find Terroirs has been warmly welcomed all round”.
• Fay Maschler (19th November 2008)
  4/5 stars
  
  Rather out of the blue – if there’s been any pre-publicity, none of it has come our way – the critic pens something appoaching a rave review of this new Covent Garden wine bar, whose chef, Ed Wilson, trained chez Galvin, and where many dishes display “[t]hought, love and precision in execution”.