Monthly Archives: December 2009
Weekly Round-Up of National Critics’ Restaurant Reviews by @OliverThring
Welcome to the seventh weekly round-up of reviews from the national restaurant critics by food writer and blogger Oliver Thring. Fay Maschler visits Bel Canto, the bizarre restaurant where waiters double as opera singers. Their ‘enthusiasm and [mutual] supportiveness’ is … Continue reading
What is it about French waiters? by @OliverThring
Paris yesterday, cold and bright. Cream stone, pursed mouths, a brown ribbon of river. I’ve been here every year since my late teens, I grew up in a Swiss village a mile from the border, my dad still lives in … Continue reading
“Sharing” plates: the grim trend of 2009 by @OliverThring
So 2009 wheezes out the decade. As I write this, snow is falling outside, unsettlingly. This is a fearful time for restaurants: they’re hyping their Christmas menus with all the urgent gloom of a closing down sale. Those glorious, spending … Continue reading
Weekly Round-Up of National Critics’ Restaurant Reviews by @OliverThring
Matthew Norman has an abysmal meal at ludicrously-titled The Modern, Manchester, topping it with an NDE on the M6. ‘I couldn’t depart this chilly, self-important horror fast enough.’ Despite an ‘incongruously warm and expert’ waitress, Lancashire hotpot was ‘calumny’, and … Continue reading
Weekly Round-Up of National Critics’ Restaurant Reviews by @OliverThring
Welcome to the fifth weekly round-up of reviews from the national restaurant critics by food writer and blogger Oliver Thring. Guy Dimond travels to Mennula on Charlotte Street, and finds this new high-end Sicilian ‘rustic, regional’ and ‘refined’. It’s all … Continue reading
Authentically Meaningless by @OliverThring
Something’s got my goat recently. Kid, curd and little beard. It began as a niggling irritant but has steadily descended into vein-bulging rage. It’s a word, a single word, sneering back at me on every menu I scan, on every … Continue reading
Post your review and win a meal for two!
It’s December. It’s official. The festive season is upon us! A time for mince pies, sherry and those easy-peel tangerines… a time for cinnamon air fresheners, tinsel and fairy lights… and a time for fitting as many social gatherings into … Continue reading