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 ‘reliably good cooking’: arancini are ‘ambrosial’, a ‘Brit-Italian’ pork belly with fennel seeds, polenta and apple sauce is ‘perfectly cooked’, and cannoli are just about ‘the real thing’.
Toby Young takes his Indie column to the same joint. He’s not blown away: ‘there’s nothing particularly flashy about Mennula’. ‘It won’t win any prizes and I can’t see it ever becoming a destination restaurant. But it’s ‘simple Sicilian food, lovingly prepared by a talented chef’.
Jasper Gerard heads to Galvin La Chapelle, finding its fame ‘deserved’, and its dining room ‘awe-inspiring’. Crab lasagne is worthy of ‘praise’, with pasta sheets ‘thinner than Peter Andre’s CV’. Lunch is ‘not flawless’, however, with ‘variable’ service and puddings that are ‘too expensive’ – but a meal here ‘will leave you smiling’.
Marina O’Loughlin gives a mixed review to ‘utterly, rock-chic-y, super-ultra-über cool’ Proud Cabaret, Camden. While the menu makes ‘all the right noises’ with its sourcing, a pear and blue cheese salad arrives sans cheese, beef Wellington consists of ‘one measly slice’, and ‘everything is over-salted into mouth-puckering oblivion’. The accompanying entertainment is ‘as dissolute as a Romford hen party’.
Giles Coren ‘loved everything about’ dinner at William Drabble’s new posting at Seven Park Place. It’s a ‘grown-up, serious restaurant for people who eat out a lot’. Scallop carpaccio is ‘stunning’, while best end of Lune Valley lamb is ‘red, red, red’, although a pudding of mint parfait with chocolate jelly ‘didn’t taste very nice’. (I’ve had it myself, and agree.)
Zoe Williams finds Lido in Bristol ‘somewhat lukewarm’. While salt cod fritters with pickled fennel ‘charmed me utterly,’ a Lido salad is ‘just a great heap of salad’ and ‘mains were disappointing’. Salted caramel ice cream is ‘fantastic’, though, and style and setting are ‘absolutely wonderful’.
Fay Maschler has a disastrous meal at Chinese Cricket Club, a restaurant attached to a business hotel by Blackfriars Bridge. Most of the food is ‘over-salted’, although a soft-shell crab with mayonnaise is ‘disconcertingly sweet’. Dim sum are ‘expensive’, and Szechuan pepper and chilli squid is ‘assault and battery’. ‘I wish Chinese Cricket Club had been better,’ she sighs.
Euan Ferguson visits Bistro K, the re-re-gutted site of divisive weird-out L’Ambassade de L’Ile. The new incarnation is ‘a rather uncomfortable’ mixture of ‘uptight fine dining and … informality’, and service is ‘over-busy’. Rillettes are ‘mushy’, although duck confit is ‘very good’, despite ‘fussy’ presentation. Ferguson finds a bill of over £50 a head ‘steep’ given what’s on offer.
AA Gill reviews (if that’s the word) Winter Wonderland, the seasonal German funfair in Hyde Park. He’s predictably scathing: Flemish pancakes with Nutella are ‘like Goebbels’s haemorrhoids, so not that bad’, and a bratwurst with ‘surprisingly tough skin’ ‘wasn’t quite the worst koch I’ve ever eaten, but … was pretty awful’. Gluhwein was ‘gingerbread man’s pee’.
And Simon Majumdar of Dos Hermanos has a chicken mooli at, um, Mooli. ‘They’ll do very well,’ he thinks. A mango lassi is ‘excellent stuff – creamy, thick and delicious-tasting’, while the chicken is ‘moist’, although its spicing is ‘perhaps a little too subtle’. ‘It is not going to change the world,’ he says, but it’s ‘a fresh and welcome addition to an already crowded market’.