The Guardian
Grace Dent delivered her first critical brickbats of the year after a disappointing visit to a Lebanese rotisserie chicken specialist that left her “spitting feathers”.
Close to Hamley’s and an offshoot of nearby Aline, Toum certainly looked the part on social media, with smartly dressed staff and what breathless bloggers described as “impossibly juicy” chickens rotating on a grill behind the chefs’ heads. But on Grace’s lunchtime visit during the busy January sales the rotisseries were empty and stationary, while those smartly dressed managers were locked in a laptop meeting at the bar, ignoring their guests.
As for the food, the humus was fine and pickles excellent. But they came with a “small, chunky, unlovable wretch of a flatbread the size of my palm”, and were followed by a small portion of very average and “mysteriously self-cooking” chicken that had patently been lurking downstairs. The pièce de résistance, however, was a “half aubergine steamed – or had it been boiled? – to the texture of a bloated sanitary towel. It felt like vegetarian cooking by someone who had been emotionally wounded by a vegetarian: this was personal”.
Grace Dent - 2025-01-19
