Welcome to the weekly round-up of national restaurant critics by Oliver Thring
A. A. Gill is at Bistrot Bruno Loubet. ‘The menu is short and brilliantly desirable.’ Snails and meatbealls were ‘musty and meaty’, a skate terrine was ‘pressed and precious and pristine’ and a beef daube ‘cooked with a slow care’. Gill is, by my count, the fifth major critic to end his review with a variant on: ‘Welcome back, Bruno, we needed you.’
Shreddie Kruger, for The London Review of Breakfasts, is there too. The coffee was cold and eggs Benedict came with sacrilegious bacon instead of ham: apparently, the ‘extra fat in the bacon pushes the dish’s richness over [the] edge’. But BBL still offers a ‘fine array of fruits, juices, breads, yoghurts and people-watching’.
Interesting to read Giles Coren’s review of Petrus after A. A. Gill’s last week. They went together, and seemingly agreed on much of it, not least the fact that ‘there are no good tables’. The space ‘feels like the lobby of a Thistle hotel’; a dish of sweetbreads was ‘drab’, a pigeon so rare it tasted of ‘playground nosebleed’. John Dory was ‘very dry’, and everything was served with ‘fiddle-faddle’.
Lisa Markwell is also at Petrus: ‘Sean Burbidge is clearly talented, but it feels as if he is following a generic posh-food template’. Braised beef shin with fillet was ‘tender and perfectly cooked’, but though Markwell ‘can’t find fault’, she ‘can’t find it in [her] heart to recommend it either’.
And nor, for that matter, can Jay Rayner: Petrus ‘has many virtues; sadly, the food isn’t one of them’. Those sweetbreads are ‘solid French cookery’ and the main courses ‘ho-hum’. ‘The wine list is an act of violence’; everything ‘feels like an opportunity missed’.
A rinsing for Golden Day by John Walsh, who’d read a ‘wildly enthusiastic review’ in a broadsheet (most likely The Observer) and who was disappointed. Pig’s ear with chilli was ‘cold and glutinous offcuts of what looked like anaemic bacon’ and won ton soup ‘tasteless, just like the music’. ‘The Golden Day is frankly insulting’.
Andy Lynes presents Manson with a rare negative review. Lamb rump was ‘severely undercooked’ and a veal chop was ‘nicely grilled but artlessly presented’. Scallops with crab gratin was ‘the only dish that hinted at … culinary fireworks’: all the ‘adulation … might have gone to [Gemma Tuley's] head’.
Zucca is ‘an ideal restaurant,’ says Fay Maschler. A veal chop for just £12.50 retained a ‘blush of pink’, and the seasoning to roast pigeon was ‘spot on and enlivening’. The all-Italian wine list is ‘a treasure trove’: shame it’s in bloody Bermondsey.
Guy Dimond likes Zucca too: ‘the design looks stark but stylishly Italian’. Breads are good; there’s a starter of minced pigeon on ciabatta with speck; and although pasta was overcooked, a ragu of pigeon, veal and guinea fowl was ‘flavoursome’. The wine is ‘unusually intelligent’.
The Dogs is a nice-sounding place in my hometown of Edinburgh: commendably, Pascal Wyse gets through his review without making a ‘gone to The Dogs’ joke. The menu offers ‘sturdy British propositions at reasonable prices’: oxtail broth is £3.45 and boiled bacon with colcannon and parsley sauce is only £5.10. Toffee apple tapioca was ‘a very successful, sticky finish’: overall, the place ‘knows how to serve up a bowl of treats’.
And do check out Time Out’s feature on London’s best pizzas, which includes an interactive map. A fine work of scholarship with a surprise winner.