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Review of the Reviews - London

The Circus

Marina O'Loughlin, Metro (Rating: 4/5 stars)

Expecting little, our heroine leaves this Covent Garden newcomer “p***ed as a rat, happy as Larry and not entirely convinced she hasn’t proclaimed undying love for the waitress”. To understand why, you’ll perhaps have to read the whole review.

Colony

Roopa Gulati, Time Out (Rating: 3/5 stars)

The critic finds a lack of “buoyancy” at Atul Kocchar’s Marylebone newcomer, but the food generally hits the spot.

The Orange

David Sexton, Evening Standard (Rating: 2/5 stars)

Oh no, just like Time Out before him, the Standard’s critic – based in North London, we’re guessing – seems never before to have ventured down Pimlico Road, and makes a bit of a meal of the fact that this newish gastropub occupies – in his opinion – “the epicentre of super-Sloane décor”. We’re not sure he’s really right about that: surely it’s much more Euro-American-investment-bankerish, a sort of mini-Notting Hill, nowadays?

Anyway, he visits this “great creamy wedding-cake of a building”, which is “now a sister establishment to The Thomas Cubitt in Elizabeth Street and The Pantechnicon in Motcomb Street, gastropubs so swishy that they make the finest restaurants blush”. It seems that the food is actually pretty good, but – perhaps because the place is “best enjoyed in the spirit of an anthropological expedition” – it gets rather fewer stars that the write-up might otherwise lead one to expect.

Does it ever occur to such critics that a lot of Standard-readers, say, actually live in south west London? The fact that it is not, traditionally, the home of the chattering classes does not mean that it is any less ‘normal’ than, say, North London.

Caravan

Charmaine Mok, Time Out (Rating: 4/5 stars)

A review of an Exmouth Market newcomer café that “already feels as if it’s been open for months”. The critic finds “the service is likeable, the food inspired and the coffee shaping up to be very good indeed.”

Franco Manca

Andrew Neather, Evening Standard (Rating: 4/5 stars)

“[B]efore 1945”, the critic tells us, “pizza was a dish largely unknown outside Naples or beyond Italian-American immigrant communities. Only after the war did it spread thoughout Italy and the world: from Pizza Hut’s first joint opening in Wichita, Kansas, in 1958, the dish was but a scooter delivery ride away from becoming one of the pillars of modern nutrition.” Would almost make it worth buying the Evening Standard, wouldn’t it?

Brixton – as most cognoscenti/Harden’s readers know – “already rejoices in what is easily the most authentic Neapolitan pizza [in town]”, and the same operator has now opened a flagship branch in Chiswick that’s not only “bigger”, but “better” too.

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