Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 8th December 2024
London Standard
Mondo Sando, Camberwell
David Ellis trekked to an “incandescently brilliant” new sandwich shop from Jack Macrae and Viggo Blegvad, who were already “cultishly famous in South London” for their pub residencies in Camberwell and Peckham before crowdfunding a permanent home.
The modest venue consists of a “café that looks like a chippie” with a red-topped counter down one side, tiny yellow tables down the other and a poster of the Michelin Man – “It’s a leg-pull,” David assured us. “To my knowledge, no Michelin appraiser has ever made it to Peckham.”
‘Mondo’ apparently means very big in cod-Italian American slang, and the sandwiches here are “about the size of arms crossed in worry” and come “gaping and stuffed with, say, chicken tikka masala or fish fingers and peas” (or egg salad, confit pork, green turkey).
In the evening there’s a “proper menu” (although drinks are listed simply as ‘lager’, ‘stout’ or ‘wine’), and every dish David sampled – crostini, patty melt, chicken thigh in salsa verde – was “astonishingly delicious”, confirming the “complete and utter excellence of the place”.
*****
The Guardian
The Georgian, Harrods, Knightsbridge
Grace Dent was suitably awe-struck when visiting the revamped and heavily trumpeted Edwardian-era in-house restaurant at the posh people’s shop, where she was subject to what she described as “a level of cosseting I hadn’t realised my life was missing”.
This reached its apogee in a trifle prepared table-side with great ceremony from a dessert trolley, involving “multiple small silver bowls of toppings, a legion of spoons, a smearing of cream and speeches”, performed by a man called Denis.
She was also impressed by the signature dishes from chef Calum Franklin, billed as the ‘king of pies’, including a very good, thick-crusted chicken and penny bun mushroom pie with ceps and tarragon – although the highlight of her meal, an Atlantic lobster pie, was not strictly speaking a pie at all, but “an enormous, high-sided, glossy, golden vol-au-vent crammed with lobster flesh in a rich lemongrass, ginger and Thai-basil bisque.”
So far so good, but Harrods will not be so pleased that for all its efforts, no matter how “relaxed and groovy” they tried to make the chamber, “nothing can stop The Georgian feeling like a department store dining room: definitely a place for a fancy meal with visiting aunt Ida”.
*****
The Observer
Hachi, Soho
Jay Rayner stepped into a Japanese BBQ restaurant he had ignored for six years, mainly because it “didn’t look like much”. This time he decided to sample its speciality, grilled wagyu beef – the hyper-expensive meat famous for its lacily marbled fat, that explains why a single dish at this modest-looking grill can cost as much as £139.70.
Jay had always been pretty sniffy about wagyu, mainly on the basis that “Along with caviar, lobster and truffles it is one of the four horsemen of the Oligarcalypse, a word I just coined, but which feels precision-tooled for our times.” But feeling the need to “remain open to all possibilities”, he finally decided to give the place a go.
So how was the wagyu? Jay sampled taster-size, finely cut lozenges of rib-eye and rump (respectively £41.60 and £24.80 for four pieces), “cooked briefly over intense heat so the surface has caramelised and the fat has just started to run. We add a little salt and the profound beefy flavour pops. It is mouth-coating. And then it is gone.” He filled up on pan-blistered Padron peppers (“Hachi is not doctrinaire”), chicken and squid karaage, grilled mushrooms, pork belly and beef tongue, and special fried rice with garlic and truffle – “because we are deep into this ludicrous Oligarcalypse territory now, and enjoying ourselves immensely”.
“The bottom line: Hachi is a total gas,” Jay declared, happy to be in a restaurant where the money spent goes on ingredients rather than décor – “on the platters of meat and vegetables, delivered without flummery.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Osip, Bruton, Somerset
Giles Coren led a football-heavy posse of pals including ex-Man U head honcho Ed Woodward and Gary Lineker (“obviously”) for a long lunch at the new incarnation of this restaurant from Merlin Labron-Johnson, a chef he first came across at Portland in 2015.
“A heavily renovated old 18th-century inn on the edge of a pine forest, the old brick white-washed to an ethereal, ghost-like presence in the misty countryside”, Osip features a “supermodern show kitchen” and “pretty, posh young wait staff bustling about in charmingly ill-fitting whites in a way that simply screams ‘World’s 50 Best’.”
The “very French, very haute” food, from a long and ever-changing” £125 set menu, is dominated by plants, 85 per cent sourced from the chef’s own organic farm, with “not much meat … beyond a small ribbon of cured fat, a grating of heart, a sliver of eel, the base of a stock”. Although a scallop, a lobster claw, and various cuts of lamb all eventually made an appearance.
Giles made a show of forgetting the “increasingly blurry” specifics of what was a boozy meal – but there was no doubting its quality, and he had no trouble conjuring up a couple of wonderful game pithiviers, “shimmering amber parcels… served sliced, a very rare loin of venison wrapped in thinly sliced breast of wild quail, with some green leaves (spinach?) for clarity and colour, a fruity sauce, roasted quail legs served on the side”.
***
Gloriosa, Glasgow
“In five long, hard years Gloriosa has become one of the best restaurants in Scotland. I’ll be thinking about everything I ate there for a long time to come.”
Chitra Ramaswamy awarded three perfect scores of 10 – for food, service and atmosphere – to this Mediterranean-inspired restaurant she first visited five years ago, from Rosie Healey, formerly of Quo Vadis, Padella and Ottolenghi in London.
Since that first visit, the restaurant has “grown up… It’s more chic and self-possessed”, feels “very cool, very now, very Glasgow” and is a place where “the serious, but not too serious, foodies of Glasgow flock for an unforgettable meal”.
Chitra heaped particular praise on “the now famous focaccia, hailed by many a restaurant critic as the best in the land. And so it is: chewy yet light at its hole-ridden centre with a thick, undulating crust, crispy little rosemary needles, and the ideal amount of sea salt (ie almost too much).” In the same class was a rack of lamb served with potato gratin in a sensational stock and a dish of tarragon and mint salsa verde – “the greatest lamb I’ve ever eaten; so pink, succulent and itself.”
***
Lahpet Larder, Bermondsey
Charlotte Ivers used this new Burmese spot around the corner from the Sunday Times offices to demonstrate how eating in declinist Britain has improved immeasurably in the past 50 years – “Wow, aren’t we lucky!”
The third London restaurant from Dan Anton and Zaw Mahesh, it is named after lahpet, pickled tea leaves eaten in salads, and its deep orange walls, dark wooden floor and soft warm lighting “make you feel as though you’re in a Richard Curtis film as you approach on a cold, dark winter’s evening.”
The food is light and bright, sour, salty and spicy, with lots of ginger and garlic. “If you like Thai or Lao food, you’re in with a good shout here,” Charlotte chirruped. “Listen to me: ‘If you like Lao food’!”
“It doesn’t really matter what you order, to be honest. I know this because I went back and ate most of the rest of the menu. It’s all great.”
*****
Daily Telegrath
The Shed, Swansea
William Sitwell ate very well indeed at a “proudly industrial chic” refurbished warehouse on the Swansea docks where Jonathan Woolway, a locally born “prodigal son without reproach”, has returned to open his own place after 16 years in London at Fergus Henderson’s influential St John, where he rose to chef-director.
The St John ‘nose-to-tail’ approach was in evidence throughout an excellent meal, starting with cider-pickled sardines “almost bleak” in their plainness but “fabulous” in taste. Warm and gooey potted Câr-y-Môr crab with hot flatbread was “simply epic”, while roast pork collar with sour cabbage was a work of genius – “pink, with charred edges, so steak-like, but bursting with rich earthy flavour and tempered by the cabbage. It was wholesome and magnificent.”
The meal ended on magnificent note, too, with a list of 10 puddings and cheeses – “such a large number and I love it”, purred William. Puddings and cheese are not essential facets of life, he said. “We don’t need them, but without them life is hollow, lived but not experienced.”
*****
Daily Mail
Canteen, Portobello Road
Tom Parker Bowles added his name to the growing list of critics awarding the highest of accolades to this new Italian, declaring it “River Café level. Albeit at half the price”, while hailing its founders James Gummer and Phil Winser (also behind The Pelican, The Hero in Maida Vale and The Bull in Charlbury) as “rather serious restaurateurs”.
Apparently casual (no bookings; friendly staff) – “large and cavernous, a mixture of industrial and homey” – the restaurant has hit its stride remarkably quickly, he said, and “seems to have been born fully formed”. The open kitchen dominated by a vast wood-fired oven has a mainly female brigade led by head chef Jess Filbey and sous Harry Hills (both River Café-trained) – and “by god can it cook”.
Dish after dish impressed Tom: pizzetta “gone in a few joyous bites”; gnocchi “light as a sigh”; pumpkin ravioli “something quite remarkable”; fresh pasta – silken fettucine in a rich, cream-laden duck ragu – “some of the best I’ve tasted in London”; puntarelle in a sharp, oily, anchovy-heavy sauce “an instant winter classic”. The verdict: “magnificent.”
