Evening Standard
David Ellis gave a qualified thumbs-up to the latest seafood offering from ex-Cornerstone chef Tom Brown, a 28-seater boutique hotel restaurant where Brian Turner, Gary Rhodes, Éric Chavot and Nathan Outlaw made their names in London.
“Brown is operating at a level rarely witnessed,” David said, citing complex dishes including oysters cooked at precisely 67 degrees and bass rolled in leeks and stuffed roast with chicken. “Showing off? Sure. The thing with Brown is, showing off suits him, he’s good at it. His creativity is commercially attuned: ideas he pioneered, like crumpets topped with seafood, are now on menus across the country, and at least three supermarkets have ripped off his fish Kyiv idea.”
Every now and then, though, David felt restraint would have helped. A crab custard was “close to stirring, but only once pointless frozen flecks of grapefruit were nudged aside”, while “a perfectly cooked scallop, as soft and thrilling as a longed-for kiss, was ruined by a cracked tile of hazelnut. Who wants shellfish that tastes of Ferrero Rocher?”
David Ellis - 2025-04-20The Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell stuck his boot gleefully into a plush hotel restaurant he characterised as a “monument to the dull and misconceived”.
Undressed salad leaves were “a waste of the toil of cultivation and a spot on God’s earth”. Fish ‘charcuterie’ was “horrid”, “rank”, “fishy mush which looked like squashed goldfish and smelt like the stuff you feed them with”. A chocolate, caper and olive oil pudding “was just that – a flavour combo so offensive it should be banned under the Geneva Convention”.
William’s best line? “Undercooked white asparagus looked like a dead man’s protuberance – and it wouldn’t suit a morgue let alone this dining room”.
William Sitwell - 2025-05-18The Times
Giles Coren found himself, for the second week in succession, in the position of cheering up a chef who had just received a critical mauling from another critic – this time the Telegraph’s William Sitwell, who had characterised chef Tom Brown’s new venture as “a monument to the dull and misconceived”.
In fact, Giles’s memory went back further than a week, to the mauling he gave to this very restaurant 12 years ago, when it was run by Tom’s mentor, Nathan Outlaw, and Giles used “(or possibly even coined) the word ‘deeeeeesgusting’”.
This time around, he was happy to described the cooking as is “deeeeeelicious” from the first mouthful – a “triple-decker fresh oyster sandwich in slim, crisp fried bread with a blob of hot sauce and a tangle of seaweed” that was “a lyrical exercise in texture, flavour and seasoning, in two perfect bites”.
Giles Coren - 2025-05-25
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