Goldfish

Matthew Norman, The Guardian
Rating: 9.95/10
That rarest of things, a true rave review, and – it would seem – a pretty soundly-based one too. The critic proclaims this Chinese fish specialist “the first truly outstanding Hampstead restaurant of [his] lifetime”: no mean achievement when you consider that he has “grown up, been to school and spent much of [his] life in the vicinity”.


Brown’s Grill

AA Gill, The Sunday Times
Rating: 3/5 stars
After half a dozen paragraphs on penises, the critic turns his attention to the “cold wind blowing through [London’s] kitchens”. Such market conditions, he suggests, often inspire restaurants to revise their ‘offer’, as has been the case with this relaunched Mayfair hotel grillroom.

He finds it surprising that the room didn’t work first time around, because owners Forte (the Hon Rocco) and Polizzi are “both consumate hoteliers”. (The point he has fails to note, however, is that Rocco is a consistently poor restaurateur; even Forte has recognised that food may not be his, er, forte.)

The critic finds the traditional British fare “all good”. “But it is not simply foodish faddery that [currently] makes old British dishes [generally] fashionable”, he says. “[A]ll dinner is metaphor and parable”, and British food is “the grub of hard times, of a depression and rationing… We are eating ourselves into training for bread and dripping and jam tomorrow”.


Daylesford Organics

Terry Durack, The Independent on Sunday
Rating: 13/20
The critic leaves “Earth as we know it”, to visit this Pimlico café/shop where “the people… are different – richer, certainly, and somehow softer, cushioned in cashmere and linen”, where almost all the produce (and drink) comes from “estates… owned ‘and preserved’ by Lady Carole Bamford and the Bamford family”.

He finds the whole experience “beautiful in a perfect-world, dream-like way, but… also a bit much” as “[t]he reality can be more arthouse than farmhouse”. “Daylesford Organic could lead the way to a future when every high street has its farm shop, selling directly from the land to consumers, reducing food miles, packaging and supermarket power. Or it could peter out in a welter of designer produce served up in a rural fantasy for the privileged few”, says the critic. He hopes the former, but fears the latter.


Launceston Place

Jasper Gerard, Daily Telegraph
Rating: 7/10
Visiting this relaunched Kensington restaurant, the critic finds himself “missing” the old place, whose “intimacy” has been lost. His meal is very up-and-down, and he discerns “just the faintest hint that Welch has set out to box-tick his way to Michelin glory”.


Bord’eaux

Zoe Williams, Sunday Telegraph
Rating: 6.5/10
“I’ll tell you what the food’s like, then you tell me” – the critic inverts the normal prodedure for her review of this new brasserie of a Park Lane hotel. And indeed, the ‘review’ ends up as something of a what-I-ate recital. The (eventual) conclusion? “It’s great fun… but more like a theme park than a restaurant”. An intriguing summary, as ‘fun’ is what almost every other reviewer so far has found signally absent.


The Brudenell, Aldeburgh

Giles Coren, The Times
Rating: 6.66/10
The critic gives a rundown of what he’s looking for when he dines out of town: “smiley faces, nice and relaxed, no aperitif in the lounge, no blazers, no dishes you’ve seen Heston Blumenthal doing on telly, no desperate attempt to imitate what you think they might be doing in London; just whatever is local, fresh and seasonal, not dicked about with, piping hot, and a decent bottle of wine poured without the help of a candle on a trolley”. Somewhat contrary to his expectations, he finds that the subject of his review this week measures up.


Martha & Vincent, Ilkley

Jay Rayner, The Observer
The critic visits a restaurant where one of the cooks was recently a finalist in the prestigious Roux Scholarship competition. As Wilde noted, however, no good deed goes unpunished, and he is rewarded with an invariably unsatisfactory meal suggesting “a need to return to the… virtues of simplicity”.