Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 1st February 2026 The Guardian Guinness Open Gate Brewery, Covent Garden Grace Dent was both puzzled and “underwhelmed” by a visit to Guinness’s new “multi-multi-million-pound” visitor centre – complete with a craft brewery, a gift shop, a pie stall from […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 25th January 2026 The Guardian The Tin Roof, Maldon, Essex Responding to a tip from a reader, Grace Dent found herself at a hugely popular café and bakery attached to a huge garden centre, where she ate alongside “pensioner […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant reviewers were writing about in the week up to 18th January 2026 The Guardian Corenucopia, Chelsea The first critic into print on Clare Smyth’s snazzy bistro, Grace Dent‘s appreciation of the Northern Ireland-born chef’s upmarket take on comfort food (complete with a potato menu and a Hibernian tiramisu […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 11th January 2026 The Guardian Martino’s, Chelsea Grace Dent hailed the “beautiful bedlam” of restaurateur Martin (‘The Dover’) Kuczmarski’s “glitzy, sexy, mock-Italian trattoria” in Sloane Square – a place so superbly designed and operated, at once so cool and so laidback, […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about over the holiday period up to 4th January 2026 The Guardian Poon’s at Somerset House, Aldwych Grace Dent was an immediate convert to Amy Poon’s relaunch of the family’s restaurant brand in the New Wing of Somerset House, declaring it simultaneously “sweet, confident, feminine, […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 23rd November 2025 The Guardian The Shaston Arms, Soho Grace Dent was resolutely unimpressed by a pub that failed to bridge the gap between being an “old-school boozer” and “a cool restaurant that serves food at premium prices” – a […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 9th November 2025 The Guardian Lilibet’s, Mayfair Grace Dent anointed her “new favourite restaurant”: Australian chef and Bone Daddies founder Ross Shonhan’s seafood specialist at the birthplace of the late QEII (fka ‘Lilibet’) – whose “turbo-chintz, Las Vegas-style royalist fever dream” […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 2nd November 2025 The Guardian Franc, Canterbury Grace Dent enjoyed some “just great, great cooking” at a new venture from Dave Hart and Polly Pleasence, formerly of the Folkestone Wine Company, in a timber-framed gatehouse to Tudor-era almshouses – which, unusually, serves its fancier […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 26th October 2025 The Guardian Fête, Chelmsford Grace Dent thoroughly enjoyed a “welcome slice of unpretentious hospitality happiness” in deepest Essex, where chef Tobias Godfrey and his co-owner and partner, Laura Day, have “taken the Chelmsford dining scene by storm” with […]

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