Cruse 9

Fay Maschler, Evening Standard
Rating: 3/5 stars

The critic reviews a bravely-sited newcomer (owned by the son of Hampstead’s long-established Villa Bianca Hampstead), whose Moroccan-born chef boasts Swiss training and experience in the MPW empire. She finds a menu that’s “confidently long and complex” (and “with an unusually thoughtful breadth of choice for vegetarians”), though realisation is slightly uneven. In the “traffic jam of chain restaurants” which is Islington, however, the critic finds this “an individual enterprise into which palpable love and attention is being poured [and which] deserves to be welcomed with open arms”.


Osteria Stecca

David Sexton, Evening Standard
Rating: 2/5 stars

Ms M’s principal understudy (as he now seems to be) finds the eponymous Signor Stecca to give “one of the broadest renditions of the chef-patron [role] I have ever seen”, at this St John’s Wood newcomer. “All well and good, if somebody else takes care of the kitchen. But the cooking here was hit and miss”. And the review gets worse: “Stecca, once at Brunello at the Baglioni hotel, tends to pretension in his menus, too, the opposite of what works best in Italian food”.


Bord'eaux

Marina O’Loughlin, Metro
Rating: 3/5 stars

Ms O’L seems to be a bit of a fan of ‘rolling-stone’ chef Ollie Couillard and his Gallic dishes. She finds prices at this new Park Lane hotel brasserie high though, and agrees with the general view of most critics so far that the setting is “slightly lugubrious”.

Guy Dimond, Time Out (not yet online)
Rating: 4/6 stars

Unusually, TO’s senior critic does two reviews this week. (Presumably it’s because both subjects are rather ‘retro’ in style, and he’s the only TO staffer who can remember what the ’70s/’80s were actually like!) He comes to the same conclusion as every other reviewer, pretty much – “We liked the cooking, but on our visit this cavernous rooom needed a lot more customers to fill the place and give it some buzz”. The place looks fated to be “patronised by travel-weary guests, not by demob-happy Londoners”.


Landau

Richard Vines, Bloomberg
Rating: 3/4 stars

The menu is “confusing” and service can be “slow”, but it It seems to be mainly the lack of customers which depresses the critic’s overall assessment of this ambitious West End hotel dining room. The room manifests “all the gorgeous luxury you may expect from [leading designer] David Collins”, and chef Andrew Turner’s food is “exquisite”.


Jimmy’s

Guy Dimond, Time Out (not yet online)
Rating: 3/5 stars

This Chelsea newcomer “appears to have replicated the ’80s”, says Time Out’s head man, and not just on the decorative front. He doesn’t find much wrong with the cuisine, although it does strike him as “plain” for current tastes.