Marcus Wareing (The Berkeley)
Jasper Gerard, The Telegraph (Rating: 4/5)
The critic lunches with Heston Blumenthal (sighted, as so often, well away from his Bray kitchen). His guest duly sighs “in chefly appreciation” of the cooking at the Knightsbrige restaurant (which, according to our survey, is currently London’s best). Wareing is “still playing a sweet symphony that could be out of the [Wareing ex-boss] Ramsay song book”, says the critic, but “[t]his is a fine, fine restaurant”.
Hix
Zoe Williams, The Telegraph (Rating: 9/10)
Mark Hix’s Soho newcomer turns out to be an “exciting” destination, which may be why the review – to our jaundiced eye at least – comes over just a little too breathless.
Hix Oyster & Fish House, Lyme Regis
OK, we admit this is a review which – unusually for Mr Norman – we find baffling. Try the following. “It says much about Hixy's anti-metrocentric mindset that he is willing to charge the same sort of prices at his Oyster & Fish House as in his much-admired London gaffs.” That’s a joke, right? (Or is it a double joke? The much-admiration is mainly in London, where Hix is at the centre of waves of critical adulation from media-friends which not everyone is convinced in justified.) How, exactly, is charging the same in the sticks as in London a sign of anything especially positive?
And the confusion goes on. A visit here turns out to be “worth every farthing for the view alone”, and the room is “handsome”, but of three starters only one – fish soup – seems to have been an undoubted success, and the commentary on the rest of the meal similarly seems rather ambivalent. So whether this – overall – is meant to be a positive or a slightly negative review, it’s really rather difficult to say.
The Seahorse, Dartmouth
Giles Coren, The Times (Rating: 9/10)
The critic visits FishWorks founder Mitch Tonks’s seaside newcomer, where the fish turns out to be “unbelievable”.
Ashmolean Dining Room, Oxford
Tracey MacLeod, The Independent (Rating: Food 4/5 stars, Ambience 3/5 stars, Service 3/5 stars)
“[H]ats off to those clever Warner [Benugo] brothers, who clearly understand the theatre of eating out, and have created a restaurant which lives up to its spectacular setting”, says the critic. Can this really be right? The Benugos aren’t usually that good. If it really is correct, the new dining facility at the relaunched museum is remarkable not only for being in a cultural attraction, but also for being a beacon in one of the most culinarily deprived major cities in Europe!
Le Caprice, New York
AA Gill, The Sunday Times (Rating: 4/5 stars)
“The great London restaurant that was my father's favourite, and the abiding lunch spot for journalists, has transferred to the city that in many ways inspired it”, says the critic. The newcomer, at the Pierre, is “recognisably the swanky cousin of the original”, and the menu contains “all stuff you want to eat”. “The big difference here are the customers: no hacks selling their services cheap to PRs; no Jeffrey Archer; no Snowdon. Here, it’s a room full of those impossibly coiffed and preened midtown mesdames, the terrifyingly maquillaged and taloned charity dames, with their daytime Birkins and memorial teeth, planning good-deed events on behalf of people they hope never to have to meet”.
Follow hardensbites Follow hardensparty
Become a Harden's fan
