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Review of the Reviews - London

Lutyens

Richard Vines, Bloomberg (Rating: 3/4 stars)

Although the food and service are “uneven” on Mr Vines’s early-days visit to Sir Terence Conran’s Fleet Street “hospitality heaven”, he has hopes that it “may become a first-class restaurant.” It appears to have all the elements of success: “[t]he dining room – with an open kitchen – is light and elegant; the menu is full of classics that people want to eat; the prices aren’t greedy.”

Restaurant at St Paul’s

Sarah Guy, Time Out (Rating: 4/5 stars)

The critic finds the design of this “handsome space in the cathedral crypt” of St Paul’s surprisingly “sensuous and textural”. She enjoys the British cuisine, the standards of which “revealed a very deft pair of hands in the kitchen.” On her visit, service is “eager to please – and pleased we were, especially at these prices.”

Le Provence

Fay Maschler, Evening Standard (Rating: 3/5 stars)

John McClements has relaunched the Barnes branch of his Ma Cuisine chain as this new French restaurant, where the laminated menus may look “worryingly static and chain-like” but “a satisfactory formula” would, says Fay, be a better description. The cooking – flowerily described as “fittingly responsive to the warm South and its coastal repertoire” – is “gutsy”, and “every neighbourhood could benefit” from such a place.

Villandry Kitchen

Feargus O’Sullivan, The London Paper (Rating: 3/5)

“[D]oes London really need another bloody restaurant chain?” wonders the critic. He has his doubts about Marylebone’s Villandry “launching a smaller off-shoot of itself on High Holborn”, but they turn out to be unfounded. This “attractive” bistro offers a menu with “character”, as well as “moreish” food, and “keen” service.

TwoTwentytwo at The Landmark

Marina O'Loughlin, Metro (Rating: 1/5 stars)

Already despairing over the state of London’s hotels (quite rightly, in our view), the critic visits the new dining room of The Landmark in Marylebone. It does nothing for her state of mind. This turns out to be a “brown, clubby place”, with “irritating quirks” and “deafening” music. It boasts “the world's least exciting menu”, and food which is “a catalogue of hideousness”.

Planet Hollywood

David Sexton, Evening Standard (Rating: 0/5 stars)

“Dominated by giant plasma screens”, this newly relocated American diner, in Haymarket, is – according to the critic– “ a TV dinner from hell” with “American-obsequious” service and all the charm of a “psychedelic multi-storey car park”. More “entertainment centre”, than restaurant, the food – cooked on a “semi-industrial” scale and over-sugary – “is completely beside the point.”

Coast

Guy Dimond, Time Out (Rating: 3/5 stars)

This Camden Town joint is, according to the critic, “[t]he future of the British seafood restaurant”. The emphasis is on sustainability, but, it seems, at the cost of taste, as the food is ultimately “disappointing”. Luckily, the “absolutely charming” staff, the “appealing and bright” décor, and prices go some way to make up for the shortfall.

The Clarendon

Fay Maschler, Evening Standard (Rating: 2/5 stars)

The successor to Antony Worrall Thompson’s Notting Grill occupies a “handsome corner site”, but its “front-line” location – a part of Notting Hill where “passers-by [watch] through the windows their weekly food budget being consumed in one meal” – makes La Mashler’s companion “wish the place would go back to being a pub”. In fact all in all, this is not the most upbeat review – the mostly grills cooking is “decent” but “fairly run-of-the-mill”, and staff seem “not to have a clue”.

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