The Times
Charlotte Ivers sampled both the New York Italian-inspired spots opened by Martin Kucsmarski within five weeks of each other before Christmas – Martino’s in Sloane Square, which she loved just as much as all the other critics have, and Dover Street Counter, which she loved just a bit more.
Everything here was wonderful, she said – a tribute to Kucsmarski’s “astonishing attention to detail… if you ponder over your martini for too long and the glass begins to thaw, the bartender will tip the drink into a new, chilled one.” More than that – more than good food and drinks – the place has what Jeremy King calls “The Fun. Everything else is secondary to that.”
And in a week when background music has taken a pounding, Charlotte approved of the exclusively Nineties and Noughties hip-hop soundtrack at Dover Street Counter – not so much Dad rock as “nice Jewish boy[friend] from the suburbs once again transported to his teenage reveries of running the mean streets of Baltimore”.
Charlotte Ivers - 2026-01-18The Times
Jay Rayner was the latest critic to rave over the third of Martin Kuczmarski’s Italian-American joints – this one a Los Angeles-style counter restaurant off Piccadilly that delivers on its promise with a “delicious, thrumming vibe”.
“It’s the late-night hideaway London needs; the place you want to slip into when you’re a few drinks down, so you can pull up a stool at the woozily lit bar… like you’re the obligatory louche character in Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’,” Jay mused, before reminding himself that the place will be rammed, unlike the 40s diner.
Menu highlights included an LA classic sandwich, the ‘French dip’ – thin-sliced steak with pulled beef, taleggio and pickles in a sourdough baguette that you dip into a silver boat of gravy: “It’s a lot of stupidly satisfying, wonderfully messy sandwich for £19”. Also noteworthy was the deliberately charred spaghetti all’assassina, “the edible equivalent of a long 1970s Al Pacino close-up”.
Jay Rayner - 2026-02-01Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles sat on “the hottest stool in town” at this follow-up to The Dover next door, finding “a primal energy, a visceral, barely restrained joy. The whole place seethes and sizzles like raw steak on hot iron.”
The food is “far better than it needs to be”: “American diner meets high-end room service, fast food clad in Ralph Lauren”, while the prices are reasonable: you could have a tuna melt and a cocktail for under £35, which is “nothing short of a miracle” in this part of Mayfair.
“Restaurateur Martin Kuczmarski is the absolute master of giving people exactly what they want. And he’s done it again.”
Tom Parker Bowles - 2026-03-22
