Eastside Inn
David Sexton, Evening Standard (Rating: 3/5 stars)
A “luxury restaurant obviously aiming to win a Michelin star or two” that, for the critic, grates against the prevailing “Smithfield aesthetic” – “semi-industrial, a bit stark, a touch clubby [and] not too bourgeois”. Whereas the nearby St John “pioneered a new simplicity, a return to gutsy British food”, Bjorn van der Horst’s complicated “French regional classics” can be “disconcerting”, “overwhelm[ing]”, “overpowering”, and like an “artefact”. But while it may not be “rational” food, it can be “a blast” – “sensationally good” and at a price that’s “fair, a bargain even” given the “level of the cooking and the lavishness of the ingredients”. The “big disappointment” is the design that’s “dark, leathery, beigey, oppressively Spanish in feeling”.
Guy Dimond, Time Out (Rating: 4/6 stars)
Guy tries both the fine dining room and the “more affordable contemporary bistro” at Bjorn van der Horst’s new venture for City “big spenders”. His first-week visit is to “[t]he fancy side, which they call the ‘Gastro’”. It “exhibits all the signs of the star-chasing, fine dining restaurant”, and subsequently has “the hushed feel of a job interview waiting room”. He mostly enjoys the “mainstream Modern European fare” which is “executed with haute cuisine precision”, but “expected more fireworks and risk-taking”. Meanwhile, the bistro is “less pretentious, a bit noisier, more down to earth, and more fun”. Service, in its second week, though, “was still a muddle”.
Corrigan’s Mayfair
Marina O'Loughlin, Metro (Rating: 3/5 stars)
It’s a “subtly glittering, low-ceilinged room” that’s “solid, undiluted Mayfair”, but Metro’s Marina – a self avowed Corrigan fan – is disappointed that “this place doesn’t speak of the beaming Irishman with his love of fresh, robust flavours”. The menu may be “classic Corrigan, peppered with fantastically butch ingredients” but its “execution is fussy and slightly fey”. Even so, much of what she eats is “properly sublime” (even if “details let the side down”). Servicewise, we are warned that the head honcho is “slightly terrifying”. All in all, she finds it “a bit mannered, a bit clenched”, and between “waiter-fear” and “small portions of international hotel food” she fails to have the “marvellous time” all the other guests appear to be having.
Il Baretto
Guy Dimond, Time Out (Rating: 4/6 stars)
A desire for “bigger pepper grinders” is about the only criticism made of this new “neighbourhood trattoria”. The food “capture[s] all that’s good about Italian cooking: simple, fresh, great ingredients, no fuss”, the service “is Italian at its best: professional, well-drilled, brisk”, and the basement premises have “the sort of comfortable, low-lit interior that makes you want to uncork a Super Tuscan, buy an olive grove and start driving around on a Vespa.”
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