Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 2nd August 2026
Financial Times
Jay Rayner hailed the London debut of Birmingham-based chef Aktar Islam as “some of the best Indian food” in the capital, with dishes inspired by the royal court cuisine of Lucknow that are “lofty with the waft of saffron and assertive with spice. They are a masterclass in ghee-basted largesse.”
Set in an unobtrusive townhouse close to Borough Market, there is little sign of cheffy ego about “slickly run” and “serious” operation. For once, tableside speeches about how to navigate the menu are a genuine help, and for all the apparent delicacy of the cooking, Jay warned, a meal here is a major undertaking: “Skip breakfast if having lunch. Skip lunch if going for dinner.”
He worked his way through a “mighty papad selection [with] chutneys many and various”; a “tottering” plate of chaat; buttery, flaky parathas; a spice-marinated, tandoor-roasted king prawn “the length of a baby’s forearm”; a roasted monkfish tail “in a rust-coloured butter and tomato-rich gravy of unending depth”; and a slow-cooked beef cheek nihari “with added unctuousness from beads of bone marrow”. After all that, the “sweet burst” of a kulfi soft serve with saffron and mango meringue was welcome.
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent was thrilled by Spencer Metzger’s “elegant, sexy pastiche of everyday French dining” at the former site of Jason Atherton’s Little Social – the sort of food that “adult Brits gobble up… If you can’t get into Bouchon Racine in Farringdon, go here instead.”
The fat, glossy, salty Cantabrian anchovies were “totally addictive””, and felt “as sweet and naughty as chocolate profiteroles”. A whole john dory arrived with a serving of pommes purée that was “half butter, half spud. No longer seriously categorised as a vegetable, it’s more like love/future coronary problems in a bowl”.
It was followed by “one of the dining highlights of 2026”: a 70% chocolate soufflé that you have to pre-order: “it arrives as a showstopper: bold as brass, high and glossy.”
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles was another critic to fall for Chez Rose’s charms, pointing out that despite the “bistro staples: oysters and steak au poivre, roast chicken and ratatouille” on its menu, “the cooking has a decidedly modern feel.”
“From the very first bite – raw red prawns on toast, pure and pristine, with a fragrant jolt of Amalfi lemon – you realise that this is very much a bistro deluxe”, with “a precision, an absolute mastery of both balance and technique” in the kitchen. And while it is not cheap, there’s a two-course set menu for £28, “which is pretty much given away around these parts”.
“Best of all is the roast chicken for two, the skin parchment crisp, the flesh lusciously and ludicrously juicy, studded with fat morel mushrooms and drenched in a creamy, softly sharp vin jaune sauce. It comes with immaculate French fries, and a lovingly dressed green salad. Deceptively simple, but pretty much perfect. Not unlike Chez Rose.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Beefy’s by Lord Botham, Southampton
Giles Coren hero-worshipped Ian Botham as a 12-year-old, but smashed the ennobled cricketer’s skills as a restaurateur out of the ground with a blistering review of this branded venture at the unfortunately named Utilita Bowl, which he visited last month on the occasion of the fifth T20 international between England and India.
The restaurant was confined to matchday corporate entertaining, so Giles’s quartet had to eat in the Lakeview Bar, overlooking the golf course instead of the wicket. There weren’t many dishes on the menu, “and what there were, were pure ‘Spoons”, while ‘Sir Ian Botham’s signature shiraz’ was out of stock. “So here I was, not in Beefy’s by Lord Botham, not drinking Sir Ian Botham’s shiraz. It’s like showing up to a Test match in 1985 and Botham is out for a duck, then bowls like shit – which did happen from time to time”.
The food consisted of “quenelles of gritty fish paste my cat would pass on”, baked aubergine with miso that Giles’s guest described as the “worst thing I’ve ever eaten”, and a £95 shared ribeye steak (an “unscrewupable” cut, in Giles’s judgment) which “managed to be both chewy as hell and entirely flavourless. Like eating a sweaty thigh pad… It was like the steak Stan Laurel used to resole his shoe in Way Out West.” Only the burgers sensibly chosen by Giles’s son and his pal passed muster.
***
The Feathered Nest, Nether Westcote
Adam Kay visited a country pub in a “tiny and expensively formed Cotswolds village” overlooking the “sunscorched but stunning Evenlode Valley”. “There can’t be many restaurants in the country with a better view,” although the “wipe-clean faux rattan chairs” on the terrace “suggest the end-of-season sale at B&Q”, while the bar’s “beautiful ancient oak beams shake their timbers sadly at the brand-new panelling and floor”, making it feel “like a chain”.
Adam’s martini arrived at room temperature and “tasted of a mixture of petrol station vodka and petrol station petrol” (perhaps his own fault for ordering a martini in a country pub), but it was followed by a “decent viognier”. The chef James Erasmus, boasts an impressive CV including The Ledbury, but dinner contained “few surprises and too many let-downs”; the kitchen had a “misplaced confidence”, with “grand ambitions often stumbling over the basics”.
On the credit side, ‘Pekin duck’ was a “rather pretty-looking vanilla slice of terrine served between crackers and dotted with fuity splodges”, and côte de boeuf was good if slightly unrendered, with a piquant café au lait sauce. But salads were poor, potatoes and onions wrinkled and overcooked, and a beetroot main course “arrives in three great slabs, as if someone’s knocked over a Stonehenge trilithon, and is overcooked, its texture not far off the accompanying sheep’s milk curd”. Among the desserts, a choux bun tasted like the Yorkshire pudding you find in your oven ten days after your last roast dinner.
*****
The Observer
Yeni Umut 2000, Dalston
Umut 2000, Green Lanes, Harringay
Laura Goodman compared two Turkish ocakbasi restaurants in north London with similar names, which seem to be run separately, perhaps by brothers. She headed first for lunch at the Dalston branch, unknown to her but heavily promoted by foodie influencers. Much of the food was disappointing: her favourite mücver (courgette fritters) were thin, underseasoned and served on lettuce that was brown. Hummus kavurma (with lamb’s liver and butter) failed to taste buttery; grilled aubergine tasted of raw garlic; and chicken with yoghurt came in a thin, soupy sauce that tasted only of tomatoes, with a dollop of yoghurt on top. The touted lamb ribs, though, really were “fantastic – divinely salty and smoky, with crisped edges and tender meat”.
A few days later she took her children after school to the Green Lanes branch – and everything was just right. “The butter on the hummus is browned to nutty perfection. The spinach dip has the creamy tang I missed at my previous table, with yet more magical brown butter.”
“The disparity between my two experiences was vast. Perhaps it was the difference between lunch and dinner services, or the weight of my expectations, or perhaps Dalston was just having a bad day.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell declared this new conservatory dining room, named after a type of magnolia and set on the Elizabethan Borde Hill Estate close to Haywards Heath, “a triumph”, with a menu that “tenderly delivers its inspiration from the garden – rather than shoving the concept laboriously down your throat”.
A mushroom and malt tart had “such an intense and memorable flavour, the richness of the mushroom amplified by the earthy flavour of the flour used in the pastry, which is produced by a company called Hodmedod’s… even if the flour really is made by goblins, believe me, it’s good.”
A plate of monkfish with a side of crisp, pressed potatoes – simple but delicious –completed “a fabulous dinner of inventive cooking that respects the ancient lores of plants while serving them up in a wholly modern way”.
*****
London Standard
Lauren O’Neill returned to this well-known south London gastropub 12 years after it opened to rave reviews – including one from the Standard’s own arbiter of standards, Fay Maschler – to see if it was still up to scratch.
She started with a pair of the “obligatory toasts”: beer onions and Comté on one, pork fat and chunks of Scotch bonnet on the other. “These are the only two items which always remain on the menu, and for good reason.”
The kitchen is “savvy enough to know that it is straightforward, well-executed dishes” that work for mains, although she would have liked “more moisture out of the meat and more welly from the sauce” in the half-a-roast-chicken, chips and aioli sharing plate that she ordered. Pudding of honey mousse, Graham cracker and strawberries “was, frankly, virtuosic”.
