Evening Standard
David Ellis was baffled and disappointed by this new “allegedly Alsatian” restaurant he insists should really be called a wine bar, where talented ex-40 Maltby Street chef Holly Hayes “appears to have been cut off mid-sentence” with an over-concise, over- simple menu.
Dishes such as the lamb’s heart with calçots were “gorgeous” alright, but “they are not travel-across-town plates… Food you want to eat, but you wouldn’t Uber for. I wanted fireworks from a chef I suspect has a kitchen full.”
The menu was also a mismatch with the excellent, “low intervention-but-not-idiosyncratic list” from wine consultant-du-jour Honey Spencer (co-proprietor of Sune in Dalston) – “Don Quixote to Hayes’ haiku” – although if this were a proper wine bar, there would be more options by the glass.
David Ellis - 2024-05-12The Guardian
Grace Dent was similarly unimpressed by two visits, for lunch at dinner, to this Alsatian-themed debut from a well-connected couple, Solynka Dumas and Julian Oschmann, billed a passion project arising from their love of hospitality.
Lunch featured an “unappetising” sourdough baguette stuffed with chunks of cauliflower for £12.50, which Grace likened to a “sort of M&S meal deal for Coutts cardholders on some type of high-fibre purge”.
Dinner sounded better, promising deep-fried munster cheese and a whole Fosse Meadow chicken. But the cheese arrived at the table uncooked, while the Fosse Meadow chicken had a single breast, leg and wing, prompting Grace’s guest to exclaim “This is half a chicken.”
Grace wondered if the restaurant only really existed in its founders’ imaginations. “Dumas, whose family have a major stake in the French luxury brand Hermès, can clearly afford not to care if her restaurant thoroughly disappoints its customers.”
Grace Dent - 2024-06-09
