The Times
Giles Coren, a long-time fan of Adam Byatt’s cooking at Trinity in Clapham, declared the chef’s latest outlet in the new Riverside stand at Fulham FC’s Craven Cottage stadium a “triumph” – despite his reflex loathing of the club as a loyal supporter of nearby rivals QPR.
Overlooking the Thames and tree-lined Barnes on the opposite shore, the room was magnificent, he declared – “mag-flaming-nificent” – with a “properly elegant” interior designed in homage to Constance Spry, the mid-century florist and cook who inspired the brasserie.
The menu makes “ancient and dusty-sounding English recipes sing they way they deserve to” – most notably Coronation chicken (co-invented by Spry), which is presented here en croute with a delicate jelly, as something “really new and original and lovely”.
Giles Coren - 2025-09-21The Guardian
Grace Dent had “easily the weirdest restaurant experience” of the last six months at a new venture its website presents as a pastoral riverside homage to the post-War cook, florist and potter Constance Spry that turned out to be “essentially a souped-up corporate box inside Craven Cottage, Fulham Football Club’s ground”.
Grace and her guest had the dining room to themselves when they arrived, but were soon surrounded by fellow-“customers” of twenty-somethings apparently dragged in from the marketing offices next door, who proceeded to mime eating a meal. “As we finished dessert and I paid the bill, each table emptied one by one, all seemingly chuntering ‘Rhubarb, rhubarb’ as the extras – sorry, diners – wandered back to their offices after a fictitious lunch. This is how Kim Jong-un must feel every time he leaves the house.”
No such problems with the food, which was “everything you’d expect of an Adam Byatt restaurant: fine produce, meticulously deliberated over and, largely, cooked with serious aplomb.” Highlights included skate knobs with tartare sauce; a round of “delightful” corn and green chilli tarts; an “outstanding” Dorset crab vol-au-vent with curry remoulade; claypot chicken with a herby barley sauce; a “joyous” Russian salad; and a “hulking great slice of delightful and moist treacle, date and walnut tart”. Just one disappointment: the signature coronation chicken paté en croute was “a tad dry”.
Grace Dent - 2025-09-28Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles hailed the new brasserie at Fulham’s Craven Cottage stadium from chef Adam Byatt (of Trinity and Bistro Union in Clapham) as “utterly historic”, while its signature coronation chicken pâté en croute – a tribute Constance Spry, after whom the restaurant was named – would, he said, “make even the most rabidly Anglophobic of Gallic chefs burst into a rendition of I Vow To Thee My Country”.
Anchovy fingers in flaky pastry, sweetcorn and green chilli tarts, a superlative crab omelette, and skewers of lamb and mint all displayed Byatt’s “effortless mixing of the classic and modern… Genius!”.
Tom then dropped his dining companion into the review, without introducing him: “’As good as it gets”, says Giles, between mouthfuls of mint-crusted rack of lamb.”
Strangely, he never divulged who this Giles was, although those who had read Giles Coren’s review of the very same Brasserie Constance in The Times a couple of week back might hazard a guess.
Tom Parker Bowles - 2025-10-05The Times
Jay Rayner was not the first critic to have trouble finding this new venture from chef Adam Byatt (of Trinity in Clapham), hidden away behind bored-looking security guards in the new stand at Fulham’s Craven Cottage stadium – nor was he the first to admire it, as an “exceedingly professional, reassuring restaurant that deserves to succeed”.
Once inside, he found a place of comfort and “civilised calm”, with views of passing Thames rowers “shovelling the waters furiously as if working up an appetite on your behalf” and cooking that “draws on a reassuringly unchallenging Anglo-French tradition” – with more than one reference on its menu to coronation chicken, a dish co-invented by Constance Spry, the post-War cook and florist who lived nearby and gave the restaurant its name.
It is billed as a neighbourhood restaurant – as Jay noted sardonically, “for the sort of neighbourhood where almost every house has recently been repointed, extended and finished with bi-fold doors”. Service is extremely, and sometimes overly solicitous, and works best when delivering dishes such as “smoked salmon carved tableside from a trolley with a garnished flourish, (or) the terrific baked Alaska at the other end of the meal.”
Jay Rayner - 2025-10-19
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