Comptoir Libanais
Giles Coren, The Times (Rating: 7.33/10)
Giles visits the “very civilised” second branch of this “Lebanese chain-in-the-making”, in Marylebone. “The space is light and breezy, the approach is healthy and light” and “the staff are lovely”, but if he has one quibble about this “Lebanese Leon”, it’s that “it’s a rather bland manifestation of one of the world’s most exciting cuisines”.
Gallery Mess, Saatchi Gallery
John Walsh, The Independent (Rating: Food 3/5 stars, Ambience 4/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars)
The critic dines at the restaurant of the new (Chelsea) Saatchi Gallery. “The dinner menu is laughably small” and “main courses hum with predictability”, but he concedes that “the quality of cooking is much higher than you'd expect to find in a gallery restaurant.” He can see that “[t]he owners have put a lot of money, style and panache” into the restaurant, from the “sophistication” of the décor. It is a “long, airy, white-walled, glass-fronted” place, which, he predicts, will be packed “when the sun's out”.
Whole Foods Market
Jasper Gerard, The Sunday Telegraph (Rating: 4/5)
On the top floor of the High Street Kensington branch of this American food store chain is ‘Kensington supper club’, a weekly event costing “£10 for two courses”. The critic visits the “inaugural meeting” and finds a “pleasing social mix” within the 20 diners seated at a “vast” table. With only “two choices for starters and main courses”, he and his guest sample the entire menu. While starters are “[d]elicious”, the main courses elicit “complaints”, as does the fact that “bits of cutlery are missing” and the butter is “frozen”. At such a low price, however, the critic forgives these errors and “merely suggest[s] some fettling.”
Graze, Hove
Matthew Norman, The Guardian (Rating: 7/10)
The name of this “ambitious little restaurant” in Hove sets off “warning sirens”, and the critic dreads the “fiddly style of cuisine it suggests”. Happily, there is “talent in the kitchen” and he mostly enjoys the eight dishes he and his guest order, although there are “languid pauses” between each batch, and the “decor straddles the borderline between queeny... and pretentious”.
The Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon
This pub with rooms near Brecon turns out to have “a far greater ambition” than the gastropub it initially appears to be. The critic is “surprised” by the “intricacy of the meal, [and] the evolved nature of the food”, which is “mostly very good” and speaks of “real quality”.
Aubergine at Compleat Angler, Marlow
Zoe Williams, The Telegraph (Rating: 8.5/10)
The restaurant at the Compleat Angler in Marlow “feels like English heritage via the 1930s”, with “its low-slung, vaulted, leaded interior”, which the critic finds “charming”. Although most of the food she samples is evidently enjoyable – “tremendous”, “striking” and “nothing short of beautiful” – some dishes suffer from “overkill” and could be “improved by a slightly less-is-more approach.”
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