The Times
Giles Coren sampled two contrasting venues: a “humming East End boozer” and a “serene, high-ceilinged drawing room” in South Kensington, each of which lived up to its address.
The Prince Arthur was “loud” in both noise (music, laughter, screaming kids) and food – the latter including a big slab of “beef dripping toast piled with richly seasoned flatiron tartare, the chewy shoulder beef full of capers and cornichons and tabasco and all that stuff”, half a pound of rare and charred bavette with real chips and cress and a rhubarb ‘bombe Alaska’ that was “just the thing”.
The Lavery was “gorgeous.. just wow… full of sunlight and soft spring air and gleaming alabaster, mirrors and bas-reliefs”, with food (asparagus, gnocchi, stuffed rabbit leg and Middle White pork chop) whose “quiet” flavours were “precise and sexy”.
Giles declined to choose between the two, declaring: “I need both in my life”.
Giles Coren - 2025-04-13The Times
Jay Rayner suffered from “cultural whiplash” as he sat in the bar of this revamped pub, with football on the huge flatscreen TV and a menu of own-brand caviar costing £280 for 125g. “What in god’s name is the Prince Arthur trying to be?” he wondered.
“The issue isn’t the food,” Jay emphasised. Basque-born chef Adam Iglesias, formerly of Brat, “has a live fire grill and knows how to use it” on top-class ingredients. “The problem is context. The Prince Arthur is a beaky sliver of a corner pub”, where the waiter’s explanation of the “concept behind the menu” boils down to the single, capitalized word “CAVIAR”.
“Is this a restaurant to which I would return to spend my own money? The honest answer is no.”
Jay Rayner - 2025-05-18
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