Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 26th July 2026
The Guardian
Grace Dent tested the new concept from Nico Simeone, the “indefatigable” Scottish-Italian chef behind the Six by Nico chain. This would be very different, he promised – à la carte, focused on dry-aged meat and “not scalable”, although there are already branches in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Grace was “bombarded from all sides” at what felt like a “bootcamp of flavours”, some of which worked better than others. First out of the kitchen was dry-aged beef tartare with oyster emulsion, looking like an oyster in a tempura shell. “Tartare purists will hate it; oyster purists will hate it more. But Six by Nico, and now Lennox, have never been about stiff rules.”
A halloumi shawarma with baba ganoush and rosemary flatbread was “really unappetising”, while lemon tart was served with red wine sorbet and rosemary: “three very assertive flavours in a death fight to dominate”. Grace’s favourite dish was the fish finger with katsu curry: “think elevated McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish dipped in those tiny pots of curry sauce.”
*****
Financial Times
Banquet 88, St Katharine Docks
Jay Rayner struck gastronomic gold at a venture firmly in the traditional “functional genre” of Chinese restaurants, with a relatively short selection of dim sum that are served beyond the traditional lunchtime, via ‘afternoon tea’ when “pan-fried cuttlefish cake and soupy xiao long bao are a far better option than marzipan-heavy Battenberg”, and into the evening.
Beyond dim sum, the roasted meats were a highlight: “crispy pork belly is properly rendered so the skin has a shattering crunch”, and Cantonese roast duck was especially good. Only salt and pepper pork chop slightly missed the mark, being “a little too polite and well-mannered for its own good”.
Best of all was “an extraordinary dish of fat, black morel mushrooms, halved and then seemingly gene-spliced with minced pork, plump with garlic and ginger, so that the stuffing clings to their underside. They are then stir-fried with the crispest of new season asparagus.” Jay will be back: “Quality shouts its name when you stumble upon it.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Giles Coren was “thrilled to bits” by the London debut of a chef whose flagship in Birmingham, Opheem, is a leading contender for Britain’s best Indian restaurant. “Aktar Islam is in London at last,” he proclaimed, “and we are blessed to have him. He is a hot, hot chef.”
Giles admitted he did not recognise the names of the dishes or their ingredients, and did not have the patience on a very hot day to listen to the waiter’s explanations – but “not a mouthful missed its mark”.
Among the dishes he could identify were a “magnificent” king prawn marinated with garlic and grilled over charcoal; a “superb biryani with gelatinous oxtail chunks shuddering in the rice”; and lamb brains which were “deliciously light, scrambled into a rich masala which we slapped over hot, blistered paratha. A dish worth making the detour for and a long, long way from the rare, pink, slightly bloody encephala they’ll serve you in France with a sauce ravigote.”
***
Chitra Ramaswamy headed to a remote stretch of arterial road next to a bus depot between Leith and Portobello, where a young chef owner called Sally hand-pulls a style of noodles invented in Lanzhou, northwestern China in 1915, and serves them in a beef-bone broth flavoured with a secret blend of herbs passed on by her father, who has a restaurant in Lanzhou.
“The bone broth is silky, translucent, deeply savoury yet fresh and light”, while “the biang biang noodles are beltlike, chewy and aggressively hot.”
The canteen is “as no frills as fast food gets” and “a small miracle” – Chitra loved it so much she keeps returning for Lanzhou lamian (beef noodle soup) and sweet, slightly smoky Lanzhou tea “unlike any other I’ve encountered”, containing dried roses, yellow crystal rock sugar, goji berries and jujube.
***
Doctor-turned-writer Adam Kay, stepping in for Camilla Long who was away, probably wishes he had steered clear of a “very expensive and really rather terrible” Ibiza-based restaurant that “has recently taken a Jet2 flight to London and set up shop among the shirtmakers, wine merchants and members’ clubs of St James’s”.
The beautiful Nash building’s interior had been turned into a dark and heavy cave – “imagine an Iris Murdoch novel in restaurant form”, with a 20ft-tall wine fridge running the width of the room, “so you feel as if you’ve been shrunk by a mad scientist and dumped in the chiller section of Waitrose”.
The menu “veers towards Greek” and every dish was a disaster, from a salad containing “my lifetime’s allowance of capers”, via “wet, overly buttery” chargrilled cabbage and a huge, “bowel-blocking” 300g striploin that the chef refused to cut in half, to a “tough and dusty” meringue that was “a bit like eating a pumice stone”. Coffee was served in mugs with no handles and made of thin pottery “that conducts the heat with cattle-branding efficiency”. The waitress suggested wrapping them in napkins to hold.
*****
The Observer
Guest reviewer Lauren Joseph, a chef and food writer, was very impressed by the “gutsy, nuanced food” she tasted at a “fun” venue next to Peckham Rye station from chef Holly Middleton-Joseph (ex-Camberwell Arms, Lore of the Land, Mountain and The Waterman’s Arms), “who describes her cross-cuisine sampling as ‘poly-European with lots of Southeast Asia’.”
The “sprawling” menu was full of little twists (pork pomodoro on toast; prawn toast shaped like a filled doughnut) and included a “hit list of chef-beloved ingredients” (gochujang, filetto lardato, miso, wild garlic), suggesting a “concept first, food second” kitchen. Not a bit of it, said Lauren. Two years on from launch, “Middleton-Joseph is clearly sure of her flavours and layers them expertly.”
An intensely savoury scallop with lashings of XO sauce was evidence of her “bravery”, while cappelletti atop grated Vesuvio tomato and olive oil, “pan con tomate reimagined as pasta sauce, was plain and confident and stuck in my mind long after dinner.”
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles waxed lyrical about a new restaurant dedicated to khao soi, a “beautiful, bracing and utterly beguiling” northern Thai curry noodle soup that is a regional classic impossible to find in London until now.
“The broth is rich, complex, murky and masterful, with layer upon layer of slowly unravelling flavour.” Fresh coconut provides creaminess, and soft, fresh-made egg noodles lurk in the depths, along with chunks of slow-cooked beef and slices of chewy sirloin; on the side, Yunnanese-style pickled greens, raw shallots and coriander, extra coconut milk, dried chillies and a wedge of lime.
“This is a dish you very much make your own, a gloriously balanced symphony of taste, texture and downright delight. There are versions here with wagyu, scallops, even fresh langoustines. But start with the classic beef.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell awarded Spencer Metzger’s reboot of Jason Atherton’s Little Social a glowing review, hailing its “flawless bistro classics” – the sort of food chefs prefer to complex multi-course tasting menus.
Nibbles of anchovies and red raw prawns were “delectable”, while a starter of tomatoes from Mount Vesuvius and ripe peaches over stracciatella cheese was “achingly good”, the sort of dish normally found only in the Mediterranean.
The high point of his meal was a “revelatory” poulet rôti with morels and a vin jaune sauce which “cannot be bettered anywhere”, and was served simply with a green salad and chips. House wine at £45 was “a miracle” in Mayfair.
*****
London Standard
Guest reviewer Henry Southan sang the praises of an old stager of a restaurant near Regent’s Park, where “nothing appears to have changed since 1982 because nothing has ever seen the need to”. Four beautifully cooked queenie scallops appeared before his starter, and Henry noticed that all the other tables had received the same surprise. “Generosity, it turns out, is simply how the place does business… At one point I found myself asking them to stop bringing food, which is laughable.”
The cooking was mostly excellent but not quite perfect. Lobster bisque was “rich and deeply savoury” and roast duck had “glorious crisp skin” but the meat was overcooked, while “tarte tatin bore little resemblance to the neat French classic”, although the apples were deeply caramelised.
But Henry was not in a mood to chide. “In a London restaurant scene obsessed with novelty, reinvention and the next big thing, Oslo Court has quietly spent decades pursuing something far simpler: making people feel genuinely looked after.”
