Marina O’Loughlin visits Pizza East, Nick Jones’s ‘sprawling’ Shoreditch pizza parlour. Her bianca with veal meatballs is ‘a thing of real loveliness’, while cauliflower carbonara is ‘luscious’ and a dish of doughnuts with chocolate sauce is ‘a keeper’. Staff can be ‘patronising’, but ‘everything [on the menu] is good’.
AA Gill is in Le Caprice in New York, the ‘swanky cousin’ of its London original. ‘They wouldn’t let me pay,’ he says, ‘so I left a $100 tip … [and] lunch really did cost me’. Which is quite something from a national critic. Everyone ‘loved it’, and a strip steak was ‘sublime’.
Giles Coren reviews The Seahorse, Mitch Tonks’s place down in Dartmouth. The critic enjoys ‘the best meal … that I have had all year’. ‘Unbelievable’ mussels, ‘unbelievable’ fish, with ‘complex and flesh-like’ monkfish cooked in an ‘astonishing … staggering’ oven.
Tracey Macleod heads to the ‘ace new arrival’ at the Ashmolean, Oxford. It clearly wants to be ‘far more than an add-on’ to the museum; The Indie’s critic has ‘silky, smoky babbaganoush’, ‘proper job’ cassoulet, and sea bass with ‘outstandingly good’ potatoes. ‘Let us give thanks,’ she beseeches.
Fay Maschler serves up quite a stern review of Galvin La Chapelle, the new City outpost of the brothers’ blossoming brand. ‘Much thought has been obviously lavished on everything,’ she says, ‘except, it would seem, the food’. The menu is a ‘rerun’ of the brothers’ Baker Street bistro: salad features a ‘puny array’ of vegetables, while tuna escabèche is ‘more like tuna tataki’. Maschler reckons the brothers are after ‘a Michelin star or two’, but on the strength of this review that doesn’t look likely.
And Guy Dimond heads to the same place, finding the £24.50 prix fixe ‘a far better deal’ than the à la carte. Boudin noir is ‘blacker than Satan’s soul’, while puddings have ”wow’ factor’.
Jasper Gerard, lucky chap, is at Marcus Wareing at The Berkely. (Do not call it Petrus.) ‘The critics agree,’ he says: ‘this is a fine, fine restaurant’. ‘”Pan-fried” foie gras’ (why the quotation marks?) with peach, honey, amaretti, black olive and peach jelly is ‘heaven’, and Gerard’s guest, a Mr Blumenthal, is ‘sighing in chefly appreciation’. Lunch costs over £150 a head, but it’s a true ‘feast’.
Zoe Williams joins the choir hymning praises to Hix in Soho. ‘People are excited because it’s exciting’, she says. She raves at the ‘high art’ of Hirst and Lucas, and likes the famous cod’s tongue: ‘very good’ and ‘muscular’. A beef fillet is ‘peerlessly juicy’. ‘Hix delivers,’ she concludes.
Charmaine Mok is in Roka, the ‘cavernous’ sister of Zuma at Canary Wharf. Fried baby squid is ‘understated, greaseless and delicious’, but Mok waited 45 minutes for a scallop dish to appear, leading her to remark that ‘the service had better sharpen up quick’.
Also for Time Out, Ben McFarland gives a fine review to Charlie McVeigh’s new pub The Draft House, on the Northcote Road. ‘It’s rare to find a London bar, rather than a pub, that reveres beer,’ he points out, ‘but this place … does just that’. McFarland doesn’t lavish much description on the food, but a Roquefort burger is ‘succulent’.
And blogger Hollow Legs visits Snazz Sichuan at King’s Cross. It’s a mixed review: while tripe is like ‘chewing on a bath mat’, pig’s intestines are ‘crispy’ and ‘gooey’. Flavours seem rather ‘toned down’, and pricing is erratic, even if the décor is of a ‘higher standard’ than other Szechuan restaurants in the capital.