The Times
In his first review since joining the FT, Jay Rayner headed to London’s oldest restaurant, est. 1798 – a place where he has his own history. His late mother treated him lunch there almost 50 years ago, and he tasted his first oysters and Sancerre.
The restaurant has its own history, of course, but “has never been a prisoner of its history”.
“Rules bellows British, but in truth it has more in common with the great brasseries of Paris, places such as Bofinger and La Coupole, than it does with tatty pubs banging on about homegrown classics.” And, Jay added, a lot of the British dishes on the menu – Cornish crab salad, steak and kidney pudding – require “armfuls of French technique”.
“There are game chips, a fancy name for lattice crisps, hot from the deep-fat fryer. Anyone who does not love those has no business being in a restaurant”. To finish, a “glowing dome of steamed sponge pudding” that “manages to be both adult and childish. All the best desserts are.”
Jay Rayner - 2025-03-23The Times
The Sunday Times unveiled Camilla Long, one of its heavyweight columnists, as its new restaurant critic this week – dispatching her for her first review, as custom apparently has it, to London’s oldest restaurant (est. 1798).
Rules is well-known to Camilla after possibly a hundred visits; it’s an institution she loves for a brand of confidence that is “so rare in restaurants as to be almost erotic”, and for a raffish atmosphere. There’s an upstairs cocktail bar, once “Edward VII’s sex lair”, and the feeling that the whole place is “a bit wayward and leery, about six months from needing a serious refit. But then, when you’re over two hundred years old, why make any effort? Bothering about loos is common, isn’t it?”
So what did she make of the victuals? “Acres of succulent brown food, game, shrimp, puddings. The main cooking method seems to be ‘imperial fug’. Potted shrimps are soft and silken in their pot — there’s a fat wodge of bread, more than enough to go around — and duck rillettes are gamey, spicy, fabulous, with a big earthy dollop of armagnac chutney. A roast crown of lean mallard is served pink, with salsify, mushrooms and quince. It’s fine. And then there is Rules’s — what’s the dumb phrase? — hero dish, steamed steak and kidney pudding.”
Camilla Long - 2026-02-08
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