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Review of the reviews - National

The Commander

AA Gill, The Sunday Times (Rating: 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”.

Goodman

Jay Rayner, The Observer

The critic, it turns out, has met the man from Moscow who is the money behind this new Mayfair steakhouse. “This is a proper steakhouse”, he concludes, serving properly aged pieces of beef that have been sent through a hot grill and then allowed to rest”, he says, “[b]ut they are not quite fabulous steaks… [not quite having] that big, mineral-rich flavour the best steaks deliver”.

Tendido Cuatro

Matthew Norman, The Guardian (Rating: 7/10)

“All the traditional tapas were good” when the critic visited this Fulham tapas bar, but it is the speciality paella which was an “aesthetic triumph”, and with an “impressive” depth of flavour too.

Franco Manca

Tracey MacLeod, The Independent

The critic visits a Brixton spot which “serves the best pizza in Britain”. Franco Manca's pizzas – as the review explains in some detail – “are the product of an obsession”.

Le Bouchon Breton

Erica Wagner, The Times

“Yes, it was a Wednesday evening, but there was a sense of foreboding about the emptiness of the place”, when the critic visited this Shoreditch brasserie. Her meal is very up and down, but problems were dealt with well. Even so, she concludes she probably wouldn’t go back.

Piazza by Anthony, Leeds

Terry Durack, The Independent on Sunday (Rating: 15/20)

Anthony Flinn is the “brightest young chef to come out of the north of England in years”, says the critic. He has recently launched “his most ambitious project to date, a £500,000 gastrodome in Leeds's Grade I-listed gem of a Corn Exchange”

“Lucky Leeds, then, to have its most extraordinary Victorian building filled with a Flinnopolis of good food; one cleverly priced for its times and generous with its skills. Now, let the people come, for the bakery, the coffee, the bar and the brasserie, because you can't be a true crowd-pleaser until you have the crowds to please.”

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