Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 27th July 2025
London Standard
David Ellis visited a new Roman restaurant co-founded by Ed Templeton of Carousel and Theo James, “the irrepressibly handsome White Lotus star” whose involvement has generated generous helpings of hype.
Tut tut, warned David, “a celebrity is not the right reason to visit a restaurant (see: all of Berkeley Square)”. Luna is commendably unflashy, but is a she-wolf (‘lupa’ in Italian) “in sheep’s clothing”. It “appears to have been designed by Pinterest… it is following the herd”.
The menu is also generic: “with Carousel’s rotating residencies, and James’s extensive travels, you’d think they’d have done something more interesting than spaghetti in tomato sauce”. Familiar would be fine if the execution was excellent – but too many dishes were either severely underpowered, or over-seasoned. “I left not sure if it was good, bad or just indifferent,” David concluded, adding that chef Naz Hassan would “get it right with time, I think”.
*****
The Guardian
Grace Dent was resolutely unimpressed by a “brand new, mock-Parisian brasserie” just off Oxford Street that “appears to have Mayfair’s mega-affluent tourist firmly in mind”.
This is a “movie-set version” of a French restaurant “where all traces of the sticky-carpeted, scabby-banistered Parisian all-day diner with fractious waiters have been completely erased” for an audience of “Rolex-wearing, Birkin bag-clutching guests… with deep pockets and only the smallest yearning for true French cooking “.
The food was “nice enough” but not memorable, with the exception of three dishes: poulet Gaston Gérard with an “outstanding” tarragon and Dijon sauce; a side of bubbling baked cheese ravioli (or gratin du ravioli du Dauphiné); and a “deeply un-Parisian” multi-layered chocolate cake – “a huge 1980s Sara Lee gateau on steroids” that was clearly delicious but, Grace insisted, had no place on a French menu.
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Giles Coren kept kosher at a “superposh” and “very expensive” joint which has recently relocated from the Island Grill at the Royal Lancaster hotel, and has a “menu [that] ranges far and wide, themed only by its being kosher”.
There are not many kosher restaurants around, he explained, so here you can eat “pretty much whatever you want… including all the new fancy dishes you’ve heard about”. The food was all pretty good – certainly by comparison with some of the other kosher restaurants Giles has visited.
“Listen, if you’re not kosher, you won’t really have a use for Tony Page, but if you are then I think it’s very special. Good food, lovely room, top vibes and very cool staff.”
***
Killiecrankie House, Perthshire
Chitra Ramaswamy was thrilled by dinner at a tiny restaurant-with-rooms on the southern edge of the Highlands, where Japanese techniques and ingredients, Scottish storytelling, and boundary-pushing eccentricity combine to create “one of the most exciting and visionary restaurants in Scotland”.
It was opened in 2021 by chef Tom Tsappis and his wife Matilda Ruffle, who runs the front of house and is “one of Scotland’s most exciting sommeliers”, creating saké and wine pairings that are “high-end and unconventional”, sometimes “truly bonkers”.
The signature snack is inspired by the thrifty Scots tradition of keeping porridge in a drawer – “reinterpreted here as a slab of oats mixed with confit duck leg, fried in duck fat, and served with a pickled walnut emulsion and flurries of Isle of Mull cheddar. It tastes like haggis and brown sauce — the future and the past, all at once.”
***
Charlotte Ivers was keen to welcome the arrival of a smart new gastropub in a part of London where people of her generation (the early 30s) move to procreate. For reasons she could not fathom, however, every dish she ordered – courgettes, malfatti, fillet of cod with broad beans, smoked ricotta and tomato – arrived as or in a soup.
“Had the menu been designed with … babies in mind?” she wondered. “The infant on the table next to us seemed to be having a wonderful time. Was I, too, being weaned?”
What’s more, pretty well everything on the menu was “just slightly too sweet”. On the credit side, it is a “gorgeous” place with lovely high ceilings, the drinks list is good, and the kitchen shows flashes of genius, including “wonderfully crispy” salt cod beignets and a decent chocolate mousse with olive oil.
*****
Daily Mail
Declaring that “decent barbecue is still a rare thing in London”, Tom Parker Bowles headed to a spot that opened earlier this year just off the Chiswick High Road that he had read good things about.
The Cookshack smoker – “a vast and serious piece of kit” – was suitably impressive, while baby back ribs had an “excellent pert texture, and a fine bark (or crust)”. “But the smoke flavour is barely discernible. They need more oomph.”
Pulled pork was up to scratch, but brisket was another disappointment. “Again, there’s little trace of the smoker and it verges on the bland. Still, there’s potential here. They just need to dial up that smoke.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell found gastronomic bliss at a “magical” countryside restaurant-with-rooms, created by a couple who “believe me, will go down in history as one of the great marital duos of British restaurants” – Ruth Leigh and her husband, chef Oli Brown, who worked together at her famous father Rowley Leigh’s Café Anglais in Bayswater.
Lunch here was “magnificent, proof that lovely stuff happens when a chef who has a handle on Italian technique bags fabulous local produce”. The result: a “blissful collision of Italy and England”.
The absolute highlight of William’s meal was chocolate mousse – “ah! Rich, soft and uncomplicated, like Mummy used to make it. The lesson of the mousse as with everything at Updown – don’t mess with greatness, instead understand how you can simply make it greater.”
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner was impressed by the new incarnation of a legendary Thai canteen in Leytonstone, recently relaunched in a more central location by head chef Sirichai Kularbwong following the retirement of his parents. Jay confessed he had never visited the original – and worried that its cult was partly a function of location, the “schlep to east London” acting as “its own flavour enhancer”.
He need not have worried, finding “vivid, brilliant food, a long way from the obvious repertoire of the generic British Thai restaurant”. There was a fiery larb made with finely chopped raw beef that left him sweating and blinking; shell-on prawns in a “fabulously pungent curry”; nuggets of smoked pork belly, “caramelised outside, melting within”.
Here in central London, though, regional Thai cooking seems less original, with Smoking Goat across the road, Som Saa nearby, and others not too far away. Never mind, Jay declared, it’s not a competition: “Singburi is dead. Long live Singburi.”
