Kate Spicer, The Sunday Times (Rating: Food 4/5, Ambience 3/5)
You can get to this “stylish” (“in a farmhouse imagined by The World of Interiors sort of way”) Highland hotel” by seaplane and its bedrooms are “kitted out for the perfect dirty weekend -- all steam rooms, log fires and double bathtubs”. The “Highland modern” food is “smart..., but has a straight-up appeal and honesty”. Veggies however: “there were so few”.
To Jay's surprise, TV chef James Martin's new restaurant, inside the Alea Leeds casino, “turns out to be the one part of the casino which isn't a gamble’’ and, despite its odd decor and prices “steep by Leeds standards”, the dishes are “modern, big on flavour, uncontrived, comforting”.
Zoe Williams, The Sunday Telegraph (Rating: 3/5 stars)
Zoe would be “here ceaselessly if it were my local; you'd have to hose me out”. The pub itself is “grand Victorian” with “hugely high ceilings” and “judiciously, not much has been done to chic it up”. During a “serene” empty lunchtime, the report is of an excellent meal.
Matthew Norman, The Telegraph (Rating: 7/10)
A lack of menu is “presumably... to underline the pop-in-for-a-glass-and-a-bite informality” of this “self-style ‘bistro à vin”, which is done out in “studiously plain, neo-brasserie style.... with obligatory antique light fittings”. Despite its touristy location, it “would stand out as a refreshingly warm and artless restaurant in a far more competitive locale” – “nothing clever or showy, just excellent wine and nice, rustic food served by nice, friendly people”.
Giles Coren, The Times (Rating: Food6/10, Service6/10, SRA 5/10, Score 5.66)
This “rather dark, brown-leathered space” underneath Assagi is empty when Giles visits “on a sunny Thursday lunchtime”. His experience leaves him “unfeasibly curious to know more about Georgia...” and his comments on the food suggest it’s certainly interesting (“extraordinary”, “staggering”) despite results being somewhat hit and miss (“waste of time”, “feebly flavoured”). “Terrifyingly robust” wine compensates for the “swimming pooly” mineral water.
John Walsh, The Independent (Rating: Food 2/5, Ambience 1/5, Service 3/5)
“If the MasterChef judge can’t offer anything more exciting than this, the locals will continue to eat where they're eating now – ... the dozen other Bermondsey restaurants where you don’t feel you're being fed mediocre tat with a celebrity name attached to it.”
“The neighbourhood restaurant is a hard thing to master” and Adam Byatt's second venture, sibling to Clapham favourite Trinity, on trendy Abbeville Road has yet to “hit its stride”; it has the feel of a local eatery but the food disappoints with “the execution of the good ideas…competent, but not more than that” and, if the place is going to stick around for the long-term, its kitchen better do “its best work more of the time”.
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