Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 5th April 2026
London Standard
David Ellis marvelled at the “astonishingly, masterfully good” debut restaurant from high-profile chef Sally Abé, finally free to do her own thing as boss after head chef stints at the Harwood Arms, the Pem and the Bull in Charlbury.
Opting to create a “British bistro”, she has created something “unmistakable, idiosyncratic, singular”, proving that our national cuisine goes “beyond Sunday roasts, chippy teas and crap pies constantly at risk of extinction”. Dishes include the likes of beef sirloin with wild garlic or Cornish mussels out of their shells with sweet Jersey royals, cauliflower and spikes of romanesco broccoli. A starter of bone marrow baked with snails, garlic and parsley prompted David to wonder: “Might Abé be the only chef cooking bone marrow properly in London?”
He went even further in his praise, declaring: “Sally Abé could be said to be London’s greatest female chef. I’d prefer to say she’s one of London’s greatest chefs.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Camilla Long was astonished at the sheer expense of a meal for two at this new high rollers’ joint from chef Matt Abé (coincidentally Sally’s ex, see above), backed by Gordon Ramsay and occupying the former Le Gavroche site, where she and her guest were “lured” by “charmingly ruthless staff” into ordering a different wine with almost every dish (“You really can’t eat that stuff sober)”, plus a “random truffle bucket” and a cheese course.
The room looked like a Qantas business lounge (an over-literal reference to the fact that Matt is Australian, Camilla reckoned), while several of the dishes were breathtaking in both looks and taste, most notably “two milky fronds of white asparagus arranged in a V, sprinkled with microherbs and flowers with a ‘sauce Maltaise’ — basically a blood orange hollandaise. You bite into it, the heavens part, the choirs burst into song… It tastes soft and creamy and acidic and it’s the loveliest dish I’ve had in a long time.” Quail breast achieved a texture like butter, and a coiled pile of squid in XO sauce was “by turns vinegary, sweet and pulsing with umami”.
But the prices: “As a restaurant critic, the deal is: the paper pays for the food (the table’s also booked under a pseudonym). But still that does not detract from the total shuddering horror of being presented with a bill for two, with wine, for £1,122. I gasp, ‘We’ve just eaten a mini-break.’
“You look at it all, and think, I could easily have a great meal just down the road for £300. Why is this £822 better? And the answer is: it isn’t. It’s just food. You’re paying £822 for ego: yours and theirs.”
***
Giles Coren had never visited this tiny cult venue which has attracted permanent queues since opening in 2020 (“I don’t queue”), but news of a bigger, bookable branch opening around the corner brought him promptly in its first week of trading. He found a “glorious jewel in London’s Cantonese crown”, with cooking of “total commitment, perfect timing and unstinting attention to the basics” – all at astonishingly generous prices, thanks partly to its being a cash-based business.
“Impeccable” sui mai (soup-filled dumplings) were followed by cheung fun: “oh my days… the prawns were first wrapped in crispy bean curd skin before being steamed in their floppy rice noodle tube…everything I dream of when I dream of dim sum”. Then came “the real standout”, golden king prawns from the chef’s specials.
Giles had to return to sample the roast meats – and “it was even better the second time: a quarter of ethereal roast duck, sweet and fat and golden; fried prawn wontons served sizzling hot from the oil, with salad cream; silky pork dumplings in chilli oil sauce; morning glory in chilli and bean curd; bottomless jasmine tea — £47 including service”.
***
Chitra Ramaswamy visited Scotland’s only Algerian restaurant, a “magical” former pop-up from Scottish/Irish-Algerian chef-owner Louisa Boulazreg, which is hidden behind a vintage sign saying ‘L Hayes’ on Allison Street in Glasgow’s Southside, with no website (bookings via Instagram or in person).
“Boulazreg’s food is sensational: intricately spiced, festooned with herbs that are put-you-on-your-back fresh, teeming with gigantic flavours and cunning ideas”. A self-taught chef whose unwritten recipes come from her Algerian father, her cooking is “neither traditionally north African nor sweepingly Ottolenghified.”
Triumphs include muhammara that is “the best I’ve had, coarse and nutty, the red of old Govanhill sandstone stroked by sun”; an aubergine dip that is “is pale and delicate, with none of the smoke and smack of baba ghanoush”; white beans submerged in fruity, buttery Algerian olive oil, earthy with za’atar and sumac, loaded with garlic, floral with curls of orange peel; and a tomato and leek tagine which is “a masterclass in eking out flavour from humble seasonal veg”.
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent – long a fan of Trullo in Islington – welcomed the decision of its chef and co-owner, Conor Gadd, to recreate its “small, bespoke loveliness” close to the heart of touristy Covent Garden, in premises that are “big but the opposite of brash” and with a menu that has elements of its senior sibling’s while “perhaps erring more on the elegant but hearty side”.
“For me, the highlight was Burro’s fettuccine with duck and porcini ragu – a spin on Trullo’s classic beef shin ragu – and it’s possibly one of the best dishes currently being served in this pasta-stuffed postcode. Rich, silky, decadent, fabulous.”
Grace’s only quibble was whether central London needed yet another Italian restaurant, following recent openings that include the “superb” Vibrato in Soho (see below), the “fantastic” Locatelli at the National Gallery, and even Jamie’s Italian, “back from the dead in Leicester Square”.
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner followed a possee of critics to this widely acclaimed new Italian, where he clearly sensed that the founder, former opera singer Charlie Mellor, had nailed it as soon as he walked in: “The room, with its half-wood veneer-panelled walls, white tablecloths and dribbling wax candles, manages to make me feel nostalgic for something I didn’t experience: the trattoria boom of 1950s Soho.”
The cooking, though, is clearly far superior to anything found in post-War London. Typical was tagliatelle with a ‘white courtyard ragu’ – originally anything found in the farmyard, in this case rabbit, pork belly and offal – a classic cucina povera dish, “the humble elevated beyond itself, only here re-engineered for the not-so-humble who can afford £29 for a bowl of hand-made pasta”.
The clincher for Jay, who moonlights as leader of a jazz sextet, was the arrival of a pianist who serenaded the room with ‘Willow Weep For Me’, a standard from 1932 – “at which point I am willing to declare my love; beautifully executed Italian food, an impressive wine list and a piano player who knows what he’s doing. What more do you want?”
*****
Daily Mail
From his first bite, Tom Parker Bowles knew he was in capable hands at this pared-back, minimalist izakaya in Edinburgh’s West End, where even the less thrilling dishes (chicken gyozas, soft-serve sesame ice cream) were “a cut above the average”.
Assorted sashimi and Scottish langoustines were “incandescently fresh… simple, but sensationally good”, while chicken yakitori were “crisply chewy and greasy in the best possible way” and onsen tamago (“oh-so-slow-cooked egg”) was “a sublime mixture of the discreet and voluptuous. The wobbling white has a near custard-like texture, while the yolk is barely set.”
A well-chosen selection of sakes, sweet service and eminently reasonable prices for food of this quality back up a kitchen which is at the top of its game. “Lucky Edinburgh. Nishiki is pure class, from first bite to final sip.”
*****
The Observer
Columnist and guest critic Séamas O’Reilly returned to his hometown to sample a restaurant from Phelim O’Hagan, whose tasting menu deftly negotiates the issue of combining multiple courses while obeying the local commandment that “portions must be large enough to stop a horse”.
The result, he said, was a meal of “wee marvels”, whose early dishes included “godly” oysters with chilli jam served alongside barbecued cabbage with roast chicken and bacon, and a “zinging” (if slightly overcooked) scallop on a bed of puy lentils.
A “sensational” middle dish of hen of the woods mushrooms with leek and an egg yolk cooked at 62C, served in a foam of bacon, jerusalem artichoke and air-dried foliage, was followed by “very good” cod, then “very, very good pork”, and lastly the best dish of the evening, “rich and tender” venison with fermented cabbage.
