Our weekly roundup of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 26th January 2025
London Standard
Fantômas, Chelsea
David Ellis welcomed the return of Chris Denney, formerly of Notting Hill’s 108 Garage – “a chef of endless imagination, uncommon talent and an explorative, expert palette”. Typical of his new menu was a dish of foie gras on a pancake, topped with rhubarb relish: “I’ve never had anything like it.”
David was less enamoured of the venue itself. From the outside, the half-drawn curtains suggested an “upmarket brothel”, while “inside is what I imagine Jeff Bezos’s panic room looks like… very expensive and at the same time like an abandoned diamond mine… all rough plaster, muddy colours, peasant lampshades”. The leather-clad staff were uniformly unhelpful, too – and David suspected they did not speak to each other.
“Find a manager whose operational skills measure against his kitchen nous, and the restaurant would be among London’s very best. Denney deserves that.”
*****
The Guardian
The Unruly Pig, Bromeswell, Suffolk
Grace Dent ate “well, and more than that, memorably” at a multiple prizewinning and “artily boho” pub that is “for the adventurous diner who is happy to enjoy the culinary ride”.
The 16th-century building may be “still a rather dark, snug pub, with crooked ceilings, exposed beams, log burners and a loo up olde worlde winding stairs”, but unlike “your everyday boozer”, its menu steers clear of buttermilk chicken burger, pulled pork in a bap or sticky toffee pudding.
Instead, there is even a seven-course tasting menu comprising such dishes as venison loin with caramelised salsify and a passion fruit, pineapple and rum panna cotta, with a vegetarian alternative “that also pulls no punches”. The “imaginative, slightly maverick chef” Dave Wall even has a turntable in the kitchen so dishes can be plated with immaculate circles of sauce.
*****
The Observer
Dzo! Viet Kitchen, Islington
Jay Rayner visited a yearling on Islington’s competitive Upper Street, were the beautiful illustrations on the menu were more than matched by the fresh and punchy Vietnamese cooking.
All the usual Viet dishes were available – steaming bowls of pho, overstuffed banh mi, plump summer rolls – but Jay gravitated towards more unusual options: fried garlic crispy duck; prawns fried in a salted egg-yolk crust; goat fried in garlic and lemongrass; lightly battered and deep-fried whole seabass in thick, sweet chilli sauce – all of which pleased him.
“The next morning, I will be told by my loved ones that my breath is distinctly ‘savoury’. I wear this as a badge of honour.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
AngloThai, Marylebone
Giles Coren hailed the arrival of an heir to the new-wave Thai restaurants of the past decade – Smoking Goat, Kiln, Som San and co – from married couple Desiree and John Chantarasak, the latter a “hippy genius of mixed English and Thai parentage”. This heritage leaves him “free to mix Michelin-aspirant riffs on rare regional Thai delicacies with a solid roast pork lunch, without anyone batting an eyelid.”
Several of the dishes were “unreal”, not least a “staggeringly ornate, almost baroque cracker”, jet black from coconut ash, served with both brown and white crab meat as well as caviar.
“This is not a folksy local Thai in the back of a pub,” Giles concluded. “This is a beautiful, new, cutting-edge London restaurant run by lovely people, and intended very much as a destination. Make it yours.”
***
Kinneuchar Inn, East Neuk, Fife
Chitra Ramaswamy was brought to the edge of tears by a “peerless” meal from chef James Ferguson, who trained under Angela Hartnett, and front of house Alethea Palmer, who worked together at London’s Rochelle Canteen.
The “thrilling, produce-led gastropub” – a wonky-walled 17th-century inn with modern Scandi furniture – serves as a showcase for produce from East Neuk’s Balcaskie Estate, a pioneer of organic, regenerative and wild farming in Scotland.
When she tasted her warm madeleines with custard, Chitra reported, “I’m close to tears. Which is what happens when a meal is this amazing. It moves you, delivers you to your past, and gives you succour for what lies ahead. What a start to the year.”
***
Stow, Manchester
Charlotte Ivers was enthralled by a tiny new spot where all the cooking is theatrically done on “a coal-fired grill, a pizza oven and one of those Green Egg barbecues that every middle-class bloke in Britain salivates over”.
It is from Matt Nellany and Jamie Pickles of Northern Quarter burger and pub classics restaurant Trof, but “what they’re cooking here is far more exciting”. Dishes ranged from scorched milk bread and beetroot with honey and ricotta to Tuscan-style borlotti beans and pork and fennel sausages and more French-influenced brined chicken in buttery tarragon sauce.
Best of all was a side of potatoes with garlic, shavings of Corra Linn sheep’s milk cheese and “enough butter to throw your health indicators off for a year”. “On my deathbed I will think not of those I love or those I have wronged, but of these long, crunchy ratte potatoes,” Charlotte insisted, reworking a line she used a few months ago.
*****
Daily Mail
Fonda, Mayfair
Tom Parker Bowles was the latest critic to lavish the highest praise on Santiago Lastra’s homage to the family-run restaurants of his native Mexico – although “there’s nothing downhome about the cooking” here, whose smart presentation is as important as taste.
“Lastra is a master at melding British ingredients with Mexican technique”, so a battered finger of Cornish cod makes a fish taco “worthy of a Baja California beach shack”, while ‘guacamole’ is made of cucumber, pistachio and mint (no avocados), and very British Swaledale and Spenwood cheeses both crop up in unlikely Mexican contexts.
“Under a lesser chef, this cross-cultural mishmash could be an international disaster,” Tom reckoned. “But Lastra is a cook of exceptional talent, and Fonda doesn’t just fly. It downright soars.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
Wildflowers, Belgravia
William Sitwell was drawn to try out a new restaurant on the basis of a menu that boasted possibly the best-named dish in Britain: holiday potatoes, combining “two of the greatest things in life”. He simply had to find out what they were.
Luckily for William, “the journey to them was paved with riches”, which he munched his way happily through: “fabulous” gnocco fritto; a scallop crudo with “that dream-like silky texture that makes me genuinely cross whenever anyone suggests actually cooking a scallop”; lamb tartare; a “terrific” cuttlefish and octopus fideua – all loosely Mediterranean in inspiration.
“Then, at last, the potatoes, the holiday potatoes which, guess what, were just very decent and small crunchy roasted potatoes. Holiday? More like a nice drink after work on a Tuesday night.” He might have over-egged the potatoes in anticipation, but William thoroughly approved of the cooking, nice lighting and good service he found at Wildflowers.
