Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 12th October 2025
The Guardian
Grace Dent braved a subversive, immersive and rowdy Swedish take on multi-course fine dining that she felt was targeted at “cash-rich, experience-hungry twentysomethings”. It certainly wasn’t for her, and she signed off with: “It’s only rock’n’roll, and I don’t like it.”
The 20 courses arrived in quick succession, with little in the way of conventional cutlery or crockery, and the jokes in each one (starting with “bumps” of caviar served like “cocaine at a grotty afterparty”) were not so much playful as “big, clumsy sledgehammer thwacks”. And despite the pricey ingredients (foie gras, lobster, truffle and so on), “nothing tasted of much… At the end, they served a cube of what could have been Hartley’s jelly.”
“Some might say it’s not about the food, it’s about the vibe. But at £500 (for two with a non-alcoholic drinks pairing) it really should be about the food, too, not just painting oysters green and serving unseasoned tofu nuggets with damp breadcrumbs on a box lid and thinking you’re Escoffier in Vivienne Westwood tartan pants.”
*****
The Observer
Guest reviewer Joel Golby enjoyed dinner in a restaurant that opened last November that (along with Yellowhammer and Where the Light Gets In) “means you can stay in Stockport for an actual anniversary or birthday dinner now, instead of having to crawl into Manchester to do real things”.
Among the selection of starters, a fist-sized Tarbert queen scallop – “perfectly salty-grilled on the outside and creamy-fatty throughout, laced with brown lemon butter” – was so good he could not stop thinking about it for two weeks, while provolone and sweetcorn polenta was “unbelievable”.
A main course of duck breast with Tuscan chopped liver on a single soldier of toast “just felt clever without being smart-arse – something I’m not myself familiar with – and was the kind of dish you eat slowly to savour”.
*****
Financial Times
A visit to Nieves Barragan’s new restaurant prompted Jay Rayner to ponder at some length over the ethics of eating a suckling piglet just three weeks old. It was a morally complex question, he suggested, that each diner had to answer for themselves; and there was also the question of whether the piglet served at Legado was worth it.
“The answer is very much so, but only if you’re comfortable with that sort of thing. And if you are, you can range across a whole section of the menu dedicated to it. There’s a dish of tiny roasted ears with potatoes, smoked paprika and capers. Or tiny trotters with romesco. Or a tiny half head with lemon. There’s also a tiny, milk-fed lamb to share.”
Other dishes were less complicatedly delicious, including Morecambe Bay-style shrimps dressed with a Marie Rose sauce and topped with a fried quail’s egg to create “a louche version of a prawn cocktail, one that’s been backpacking along the Costa Blanca this summer”, and churro with cinnamon-heavy dulce de leche that is “as elevated as deep-fried dough should ever get”.
*****
London Standard
Liverpool Street Chop House and Tavern, City
David Ellis awarded a hearty thumbs-up to this “statement of intent” from Martin Williams, the new CEO of Evolv, who wants to revive the glamour of the group’s origins under Sir Terence Conran – and has started by investing in the food rather than the décor of what used to be called the New Street Grill.
It is now “a restaurant of bone marrow crumpets, Welsh rarebit fries, of steaks and lamb chops, suet puddings and whole pig heads” where “the instinct is to do the classics: martinis with oysters, a couple of starters, steak and big boy Burgundies.”
The steak is presented on a trolley, a move David reckons will delight steak nerds (although being offered a choice of knives was a bit gimmicky), and once cooked “the fillet was a pile of silk and velvet, the ribeye a carnivorous gentle giant of rendered fat, earthy as though it had not come from a cow but instead had been mined”. It could even, David thought, lay a claim to be the best steak in London.
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Chitra Ramaswamy returned to the first restaurant she visited when she arrived in Glasgow in 1997, where she had ordered her first – revelatory – steak. Founded by Ronnie Clydesdale in 1971, it was already an institution then, but three years ago, to widespread disapproval, his family sold it to brewer Greene King, who have now reopened it after a £1.2 million refurb.
Thankfully, Chitra assured us that it’s back in good shape: “The Chip, happily, looks the same only better. More shine on the cobbles. More greenery. More space and light. More good Glasgow vibes.”
All the Chip classics – venison haggis, heather and honey oatmeal icecream – are still on the menu, and if some dishes were “superlative”, others were not (dessert in particular). Chitra was happy to let this pass, given that this was the first weekend – and “what was present, in full colour, was the Chip’s legendary conviviality, bold flavours and big, sentimental heart.”
***
Charlotte Ivers was thrilled by the new offshoot from Trivet, from Canadian-born Jonny Lake, an “obsessive” chef who she reckoned has taken the best bits of Heston Blumenthal’s style (he was executive chef at the Fat Duck) and created something “subtler, more modern”.
The best thing she ate was a snack of grilled duck heat and cherry skewer, dusted with a salt and allspice mix. This was followed by an “extraordinary” starter of sea bass crudo in sweet orange ponzu, anchovy garum and olive oil.
Mains of charred mackerel and veal Milanese were pleasing but if she went back, Charlotte would “just max out on the snacks and starters. This is where the real magic happens at Labombe. The mains are good; the snacks and starters genuinely astonishing.”
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles sampled a restaurant that takes Nikkei cuisine (a fusion of Peruvian and Japanese) a few steps further with the introduction of Cantonese and Spanish accents. Coco Sasaki, the executive chef, and childhood friends Romina Parra and Santiago Wong “show they have talent to burn”.
There were two problems with his meal: the lighting was too bright – “like being caught in a Colditz spotlight. Seriously, I’ve seen darker supernovas” – and service lacked rhythm: “we wait. And wait and wait and wait. Planets implode, civilisations rise and fall. And still we wait. OK, so the room is full. But a good restaurant needs a rhythm…”
Nevertheless, Tom rated the cooking “sublime” and he worked his way through tiraditos (“a Peruvian take on sashimi”), ceviches, tuna, tempura and foie gras, to declare: “there’s rarely a dull bite.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell eat at a new restaurant where a modern grill – “a vast adjustable mechanism with steel wheels, pulleys and iron grates” – was on full view to diners: “The message is clear: don’t be a wimp, order a steak.”
So he did: a 400g ex-dairy cow sirloin. “And wonderfully good it was too. Sometimes ex-dairy meat is a little tough. At Emberwood it had an earthy depth, was truly tender and cooked to perfection on that grill.”
Everything else passed muster, too, including “delectable” coal-roasted Cornish scallops, burnt-leek soup, padron peppers from the Isle of Wight, cacio e pepe pasta and fresh broccoli – although William wished the chef had resisted the temptation of “chucking stuff” in the shape of lardo and spiced ketchup over his oysters.
