Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 17th May 2026
London Standard
David Ellis revisited a 40-year-old classic French restaurant he has known since his teenage years and still relies on as a refuge, sanctuary or asylum – “depending on the crisis”. Then he dropped the bombshell that this is his last review for the Standard, after just 19 months in post as restaurant critic.
Le Garrick’s menu is based around “a routine that plays as well now as when onions were first sweated to caramel in the 1700s”, with beef bourguignon that is “the sort of thing roadside places used to do in France, though they have long since shut”. The pre- and post-theatre offer is excellent value at £22 for 2 courses, £26 for 3, for things like onion soup and tarte au citron, although David stressed: “it would be wrong to suggest this is execution on the level of Paulette in Maida Vale or Henry Harris’s Bouchon Racine”.
“It’s the end of my beginning,” he concluded. “Pretentious until the end. Thanks for reading.”
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent detected “signs of greatness” at this “hyper-cool” new spot in east London serving dishes inspired by Abruzzo in central Italy, although her meal was rather uneven – “more a collection of loose ideas than a coherent dinner”, she reckoned. “This is, after all, a hip small plates restaurant, so there are no rules. Uniforms on staff? No. £5 Campari cocktails? Absolutely. Pristine linen but eating meat off sticks? Damned right.”
Menu highlights included top-quality cured sea bream, a “very authentic” bowl of cappelletti in a clear, slightly too salty broth, and “the star of the show”, a chicken saltimbocca wrapped in prosciutto and sage, fried and finished with a rich, chickeny jus.
But the signature skewers – arrosticini, or tiny kebabs of salt-marsh lamb and rose veal liver cut into 1cm cubes and grilled over live fire – arrived too late and a little too pink to impress: “meat on sticks with dippy sauce. My earth remained unshook.”
*****
The Times
Chitra Ramaswamy encountered a new world of flavours at ‘the only Macanese restaurant in the UK’, serving what the UNESCO has recognised as the world’s first ‘fusion cuisine’ – the result of Macau’s four centuries as a Portuguese colony in China – although both Chitra and its founders prefer to call it “progressive cuisine”.
It’s a tight and homespun little spot, run by a “fabulously charismatic duo”, chef-patron Kei de Freitas and his wife, Hoeyyn Ngu, who is front of house. “The plates come fast and each one sings with flavour and story”: salt cod fritters that evoke backstreet pintxo bars in San Sebastian; mustard basil chicken in a punchy and piquant sauce that reminds Chitra of Bengal mustard chicken, and a showstopping baca pimento – the beef sliced into soft strips spiced with black pepper, glistening with molasses, tumbled with potato wedges, peppers and onions, along with “sublime” jasmine rice.
“Macau Kitchen is a thrilling, joyous and — yes — progressive restaurant, world-embracing yet singular, unlike anywhere else. My advice is to go as soon as possible.”
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles recommends pre-prandial fasting (“or skipping breakfast, anyway”) ahead of a meal at this “reassuringly old school” new Italian from opera singer-turned-wine expert Charlie Mellor – all wood-panelled walls, pepper grinders and white tablecloths.
Food and service are absolutely “spot on”, from the choice of rare olive oils, via delectable seafood, perfect white risotto and terrific grilled meat to the softly chewy amaretti biscuits that are cooked to order in 15 minutes, culminating in a mandarin sorbet.
“You may be tempted to drop in here for a one-course, sober lunch,” Tom advised. “That would be fine, but does rather miss the point. Because this is one of those glorious places expressly designed for a long, languorous lunch or dinner. It radiates joy, hospitality and good cheer. It demands you get stuck right in.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell was amused by the name of this restaurant in a notably tame Hertfordshire town, which he characterised as “tennis courts and Gail’s, bowls and Waitrose”. The menu is driven by an associated farm in nearby Radlett, resulting in almost too many plates of delicate vegetables for William’s taste, supplemented by a square of crispy pig’s head – “a bit of crunch, soft, slow-cooked meat and a dollop of piccalilli enlivened with passionfruit. It’s the ice-breaking canapé of 2026 that should be on the menu of every Berko drinks party.”
The meal then veered into wild generosity with an “aggressively huge chop, perfectly cooked and rested”, accompanied by “a side dish of cubed pommes Anna, naughty, crunchy yet soft things, and a wonderful plate of greens, the farm providing its few early spring offerings at their best”. Pudding was a vast tarte tatin, “sticky and rich and laden with butter”.
“Wild is indeed the wildest thing to happen in Berkhamsted since the escaped wallaby.”
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner shared a recommendation for visitors to Barcelona: skip the touristy city centre and head up the hill to Sarria-Sant Gervasi, where Eugeni de Diego, a former head chef at El Bulli, runs a modern venue named after John Wilmot, the English Restoration poet and rake better known as the Earl of Rochester.
“Colmado Wilmot is the antithesis of El Bulli,” Jay writes. “Nothing is foamed or spherified. No water baths are involved. It is a return to first principles, albeit in a knowing way.”
The menu of “good produce, treated with respect” is particularly big on eggs – there are whole sections devoted to soft-centred tortillas and fried eggs – along with the likes of salami and sobrasada, red prawns, meat balls and steaks.
