Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week to 1st September 2025
The Guardian
Grace Dent found a “little patch of sanity” amid the gentrification of the 2012 Olympic zone, in a new all-day venture by the canal that is “Irish in spirit” – in its warm welcome, “fantastic fresh potato farls at breakfast”, fresh-baked Guinness cake, “Guinness on draft, of course”, Irish breads rich with treacle and rye, mince on toast, and oysters from the west coast of Ireland.
But, she insisted, the venue “isn’t Irish-themed”: instead, its overall cooking style is “fresh, hyper-seasonal and absolutely homemade”.
“At night, the dinner menu reaches for deliciously lofty moments when rare duck and cucumber meet tahini and sweet, punchy hoisin, when a tranche of Cornish turbot comes festooned with sea vegetables, when elegant house martinis match with delicate watermelon salads, and when hunks of rare onglet come piled with excellent, al dente bobby beans and assertive homemade horseradish.”
*****
The Observer
Jimi Famurewa, returning to his early-20s stomping ground of Bath, enjoyed a walk-in pasta joint that “consciously evokes the likes of Padella in London and Onda in Manchester: smartly appointed canteens predicated on speed, seasonality, arcane fresh pasta shapes and a carb-heavy approach that generally doesn’t bother with traditional secondi or sides”.
After some “irresistible”, subtly truffled wild mushroom arancini and crispy pork croquettes, Jimi and his dining companion messily shared various accomplished pasta dishes – orecchiette filled with fresh datterini tomato liquor; rigatoni with gnarly, hard-fried scrags of fennel sausage and a shiny ’nduja ragù; a moreish mass of shellfish bisque spaghetti – and ended with a light tiramisu “presented laterally so we could better appreciate its striped layers of sodden sponge and creamy mascarpone”.
His verdict: “Solina is confident, considered and cool; a value-forward pasta bar touched by moments of deliciousness and an understated glamour that’s rarer than it should be.”
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner found himself “raging with enthusiasm, not waving but dribbling”, at a passion project from four hospitality veterans who met while working at big upscale operations (Zuma, Four Seasons Hotel) and are now focused on the simple mission announced in the front window: ‘Seafood + Wine’.
HIs meal opened with a tasting of olive oils (one of their passions) that are “so virgin, so unsullied, they make dedicated nuns look debauched”. To follow, fish combined with summer fruits, as in tuna tartare with grilled peach or grilled mackerel fillet with sweet Vesuvian tomatoes and melon. Four of the five pasta dishes are “designed to show off seafood to the very best of its advantage”. Seared monkfish is served with batons of crispy pig cheek, broad bean puree and bitter braised chickory. Wine is offered by the glass from a blackboard menu. Nothing is showy; everything is delicious.
“Baccalà is that joyous but all too rare thing: the small but perfectly formed restaurant, where the cooking is terrific, the wine list is smart and it lets you find out all about it for yourself.”
*****
London Standard
In a city awash with smashburger bars and NYC-style pizzerias, David Ellis found one to be truly impressed by – a new Asian-inspired burger joint on a former vegan Neatburger site in Victoria.
The silly name is apparently an approximation of the Japanese pronunciation of “hamburger steak” – a “cartoonish” touch, David noted: “the owners are not from Asia” – while the burgers riff on flavours of Korea, Thailand and China.
His favourite? – “The Szechuan chicken baga is a monster posing as an innocent: what appears demure soon is revealed to be a huge breast, beautifully cooked and oozing juices. Its skin, where the Szechuan pepper is, is as crisp as sarcasm. No attempt is made to dampen its heat: the pepper smoulders, with only gherkins to cool things down.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
The Zetland Arms, Kingsdown, Kent
William Sitwell had high hopes of a Victorian pub in a “magnificent position” on a pebble beach overlooking the Channel. He had loved the Blue Pelican in nearby Deal, from the same owners; a local friend had vouched for it; the décor was sympathetic and the blackboard menu looked promising.
So he was sorely disappointed when “all through lunch, the place kept on trying to sink itself with moments of ineptitude and despair”. Perhaps the B team was on duty: the catalogue of errors included a waiter who struggled to get the simplest details right: red or white? Single or double espresso? Fried squid brioche was “dry and lacking in flavour”; skate wing was overcooked; panna cotta was “solid (a proper culinary crime)”.
As for the whitebait, “I was hoping to dispel a memory of eating such things in shoddy Italian subterranean places in the 1980s with my father, when a dish straight from those times turned up of soggy fish with not a hint of crisp batter. It was like a tribute act that was even worse than the real thing. It made me sad for those little fishies, caught in vain, abused by a reckless cook.”
