Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 12th July 2026
Financial Times
Jay Rayner gave a big thumbs-up to this “diffusion” restaurant from chef Sam Carter and his wife Alex Olivier, apparently named after a regular at their “more grown-up” venture Twenty-Two, which is two doors away and offers complex tasting menus.
Margaret’s is a lower-key affair, occupying a small and cleverly designed space that “presents as that friend who is so well dressed you don’t quite notice the quality of the tailoring, only that they look supremely comfortable in their own skin”.
The cooking is likewise confident and accomplished. Snacks and starters arrived in waves, including chilled gazpacho that was “a sun-kissed summer’s day in a cup”, perfect spears of asparagus and warm croquettes of shredded lamb belly. Mains of monkfish tail and loin of pork, each roasted accurately on the bone, also hit the spot, as did desserts. “Really, every town should have a Margaret’s.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Chitra Ramaswamy hailed “the city’s most beloved gyros” – the “strapping Greek cousin of the kebab” (pronounced yee-ros, she learnt on her visit) – at a no-frills restaurant and takeaway that has replaced Yiamas, which ran under the same family ownership for 15 years until last summer.
It is a Spartan, streamlined outfit with ambitious plans to roll out as a nationwide franchise. The prized gyros consist of “gnarly knots and soft threads of pork shoulder and belly”, piled with cayenne-dusted chips and a fiercely garlicky tzatziki into “thick, well-sprung pitta”. “For a tenner you will not get more satisfying, big-hearted, bold food than this in the city.”
Half hiding the open kitchen behind glass is “a big mistake”, Chitra says. “You want to be able to smell meat as good as this, and see it without reflections dancing on the glass.” But this could not dampen her enthusiasm: “Bring on the national rollout.”
*****
Camilla Long went in search of Parisian “ben oui” at a new bistro from Jason Atherton and Row on 5 chef Spencer Metzger in what she called the “Sotheby’s/Christie’s/Savile Row end of Mayfair”, a difficult zone inhabited by “strays – straight gays”: men who think about paintings and fashion instead instead of eating.
“The menu feels more Club 55 than genuine bistro”, listing fish, oysters, scallops, veal T-bones, lobster and bluefin tuna in a tomato elixir. Camilla suggested that “real French cooking – all the bollocks, potted eyes and arseholes – would frighten the other big diner in this area: the tourists.”
The snacks and starters – little Marie Antoinette piles of prawns and crab, a pristine courgette flower with sauce vierge and a scallop with Café de Paris butter – were “beautiful” and “sublime”. But the mains – veal T-bone and grilled lobster tail – arrived after a 45-minute wait and were “uninspiring”, the cooking “completely different”. “What happened?” Camilla wondered. “Did the chef quit his job half way through?”
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles encountered “some of the most spectacular Indian food I’ve eaten in years” at the first London restaurant from Birmingham maestro Aktar Islam of Opheem fame, in an “elegantly rambling” Borough townhouse.
Every dish here is very different, “but united by the art of its spicing”. “Come hungry,” Tom advised. “You won’t want to waste a morsel.”
He worked his way through a vast split prawn lavished with a buttery, garlic-heavy sauce; a whole chicken leg, complete with claw, drowned in a magnificently creamy cardamon and saffron sauce; goat curry of “astonishing depth”, and dal Bukhara with “torrents of cream and butter”. “The crowning glory of this most astonishing lunch” was mutanjam dum biriyani – a mound of gloriously seasoned rice studded with carrots and topped with wobbling chunks of oxtail.
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent was decidedly unimpressed by a restaurant created around in-jokes by Malaysian YouTube comedian Nigel Ng, better known as Uncle Roger. The whole effect, she said, was rather like seeing “memes that you thought were funny nine months ago, but are now photocopied in the parish newsletter”.
The “British classics” section, complete with references to Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, promised ingenious takes on traditional dishes such as ‘choco-orange ribs’. “Winner winner, Uncle Roger’s making dinner. This dish is bound to work,” Grace thought. “But it doesn’t. It’s hideous. It’s just ribs in a weird, brown sludge that’s neither chocolate nor orange, and more vaguely umami seepage.”
Chicken Wellington was even more peculiar. “Who is this food for? Children won’t eat it. Adults might once, but never again.” Across the room, Grace spotted a woman “with a face that resembled Edvard Munch’s scream”, poking the electric-blue pudding dumplings on her plate.
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell was no kinder to Uncle Roger’s new restaurant, castigating its “flabby” cooking and unfunny jokes. His dessert, an Asian version of chocolate fondant, “promised a ‘Happy Ending’, but in reality it was like eating a chocolate-covered flip flop”.
“Kawan is as tasty as it is funny, which reminds me of when I went to see Reginald D Hunter at The Derngate in Northampton. Not worth the journey and a roomful of straight faces.”
