The Sunday Times
Charlotte Ivers found the new restaurant at the Francis Hotel – where chef David Hazell cooks over charcoal in an open kitchen – “camp, elegant and a little bit fun”, and its food “better than it needs to be”.
The chargrilled padron peppers were “some of the best I’ve ever had”, while burrata and tomato salad with pumpkin seed pesto was the “standout of the meal”, despite her habitual burrata indifference.
“We leave feeling as if we’ve just had a rather chintzy treat — like tea at the Ritz or cocktail hour at the house of a glamorous aunt.”
Charlotte Ivers - 2025-09-14The Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell eat at a new restaurant where a modern grill – “a vast adjustable mechanism with steel wheels, pulleys and iron grates” – was on full view to diners: “The message is clear: don’t be a wimp, order a steak.”
So he did: a 400g ex-dairy cow sirloin. “And wonderfully good it was too. Sometimes ex-dairy meat is a little tough. At Emberwood it had an earthy depth, was truly tender and cooked to perfection on that grill.”
Everything else passed muster, too, including “delectable” coal-roasted Cornish scallops, burnt-leek soup, padron peppers from the Isle of Wight, cacio e pepe pasta and fresh broccoli – although William wished the chef had resisted the temptation of “chucking stuff” in the shape of lardo and spiced ketchup over his oysters.
William Sitwell - 2025-10-12Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles whiled away a long and merry lunch at a “majestic” new hotel brasserie with “high, stucco-clad ceilings, marble-topped tables and handsome lamps”.
The food – simply cooked over natural flame – was with occasional exceptions spot-on, led by “fat, charred scallops”; “vast piece of monkfish, served on the bone, zingingly fresh, exquisitely cooked and gloriously meaty”; and ex-dairy Southwest sirloin that was “chewy, grown-up beef with heart and soul and swagger… one of the best pieces of cow I’ve eaten for ages, and all that age means a magnificently bosky bovine heft”.
To complete the “class act”, service was “sweet and warm and smart”.
Tom Parker Bowles - 2025-10-26
Drinks
Extras
