The Guardian
The first critic into print on Clare Smyth’s snazzy bistro, Grace Dent‘s appreciation of the Northern Ireland-born chef’s upmarket take on comfort food (complete with a potato menu and a Hibernian tiramisu flavoured with Jameson’s whiskey) was undermined by the relentless soundtrack of “British dad rock” that accompanied her meal, from Status Quo and the Stones to Clapton and Oasis.
Pitched as a cheaper alternative to Smyth’s flagship Core, where the seven-course tasting menu comes in at £265 per person, Corenucopia is still extremely expensive, Grace noted. A crispy veal sweetbread starter costs £32, Dover sole and chips or turbot with vin jaune sauce £52 and £64 respectively, and a single profiterole with Tahitian vanilla cream filling £22.
That said, the food is “a delight. This is cosseting, decadent, calories-be-damned cooking. Grilled olives on skewers with eel and timut pepper? Absolute bliss. An ornate smoked salmon paté topped with dill jelly and served with mini buttered crumpets? Wonderful.”
Grace Dent - 2026-01-18The Times
Giles Coren had much fun toying with the notion that Clare Smyth had named her new restaurant after him; as he pointed out, calling it Parkerbowlesucopia would have just been silly. He had less fun eating the food, which was pitched in “high-low, semi-ironic” 1970s mode with dishes listed in inverted commas: “Fish and chips”, “Chicken Kiev cordon bleu” and “Toad in the hole”.
Most of the cooking, he wrote, was “at the level of a good gastropub”, although the bill came in at £400 for two with a good bottle of wine. There was one shining exception: “My vol-au-vent was brilliant, no question about it. A warm, puffy, buttery pastry case full of quality chopped scallop, prawn and mussel, straggled with monk’s beard and surrounded by a moat of foaming champagne velouté. Delicious, posh, deliberately hackneyed.”
As for the Irish-born chef’s potato menu – “gold-framed and put on the table with a flourish of tittering archness” – the dauphinoise was bog-standard, no better than the Corens cook at home, while the fondant was “positively abject”.
Giles Coren - 2026-03-15
