Welcome to the weekly round-up round of the national restaurant critics by Oliver Thring
A. A. Gill is back at last with a first-class review of Alimentum, whose food is no compensation for the ‘Cromwellian misery’ of its Cambridge setting. Gill claims to have invented steak with snails, which appears here on the menu as ‘snails bordelaise’ (they add mushrooms: ‘not an improvement’). Cullen skink was ‘too little, and too tepid’, nor are puddings ‘this kitchen’s thing’.
The Magdalen Arms, Oxford, is now ‘among the very best gastropubs in Britain’, says Matthew Norman. I remember it as what Norman calls a ‘puke’n'sawdust football pub’: it’s now a ‘cracking modern British with strong Italian influences’. Beetroot with goat’s curd (another ingredient du jour) was ‘utterly delicious’, roast wood pigeon with chicory and gnocchi ‘beautifully understated’ and roast hake with lentils was ‘the guv’nor’.
The foie gras toastie at The Canton Arms is Fay Maschler’s ‘bar snack of the year’. Steamed mussels were ‘perfect in their simplicity’ and leeks gribiche were ‘salty, savoury, herby’. Prices are ‘extraordinarily reasonable’, too.
Caponata is ‘a Jekyll and Hyde experience’, says Zoe Williams. Gnocchi with gorgonzola and radicchio ‘looked like regurgitated dog food’, but rabbit saddle with black truffle was ‘earthy’ and ‘sophisticated’. Service was ‘great’ and puddings were mixed: this was a meal ‘with dramatic highs and lows’.
Tracey Macleod for the Indie: Bistrot Bruno Loubet ‘already feels like it’s been around for ages’. The place ‘exudes urban good taste’ and the food commendably ‘favours personality over prettiness’. Beef daube was ‘meltingly soft’; lamb shoulder with green harissa was ‘great’.
Jay Rayner had a stunning meal at Eddie Gilbert‘s in Ramsgate. A boiled egg came with soldiers of deep-fried eel: ‘I could write fragmented sentences about this one dish all day’. Fritto misto was ‘just grown up fish and chips, but none the worse for that’, and desserts were ‘especially impressive’. The place offers ‘lots of flair’ without ‘fannying around’.
Seventeen’s decor is a ‘cack-handed’ homage to Alan Yau, says Marina O’Loughlin, and some of its food was ‘the nastiest stuff I’ve encountered in recent years’. Smoked eel had ‘the texture of biltong and the flavour of fish Whiskas’ and one scallop was ‘elderly pilchard-flavoured rubber’. Choi sum in ginger was ‘perfectly pleasant’, surprisingly.
Giles Coren is at Pizza Express (I know, I know): it’s apparently ‘utterly dismal’. A Calabrese (sausage and chilli) tasted like ‘a faintly Mexicanised jam roly-poly’, its base was ‘slack and doughy’. Coren’s advice is to visit Nonna’s at the York & Albany, where Angela Hartnett is pumping out ‘very good, very fresh’ pizzas.
And Niamh Shields of Eat Like a Girl continues her Posh Lunch Club at the ‘bright and cheerful’ River Café. A ribollita ‘wasn’t remarkable’ but spinach gnocchi were ‘light, springy and bursting with flavour’. Lamb with cannelini beans was ‘perfect’ and the famous Chocolate Nemesis (forgive the self-plug) was ‘utterly moreish’. This was, in all, a ‘lovely experience’.