Welcome to the weekly round-up of national restaurant critics by Oliver Thring
AA Gill braves it to Surbiton, ‘the Mecca of suburbs’, to visit the French Table. Its dishes are ‘safe and commodious’ if ‘a teency bit dull’. A pea soup ‘tasted like the warm cud of a llama with a lung infection’ and a rack of lamb was ‘tough’, but ‘it’s well-made food in a nice room’.
Marina O’Loughlin finds eating at The Summerhouse ‘wholly indifferent’: ‘super-bland fish and chips’ and yellowfin sashimi with ‘the texture of dead skin’. But Warwick Avenue is one of London’s ‘loveliest, most bucolic’ settings, and O’Loughlin would ‘very probably’ come back to ‘canal-front table on a sunny Sunday lunchtime’.
Jay Rayner is at the ‘elegant, rough-hewn’ Milestone in Sheffield. Seared scallop with pig’s head and squid was ‘robust’ in flavour if not on the plate, and home-cured bacon with asparagus, poached quail’s eggs and truffle vinaigrette: ‘looked small [but] ate big.’ ‘For me [the Milestone] is a rare and lovely find.’
‘Everyone is getting very excited about Viajante’ says the Times food editor, Tony Turnbull: ‘and by everyone, I mean the food bloggers’. An amuse of almonds, olives and romesco sauce was ‘an intelligent combination of flavours and textures’, and Tony largely enjoyed his main of pork fillet with anchovy, cabbage and celery. ‘All in all, a great lunch.’
A seemingly anonymous Indy critic went there too, and was thoroughly unimpressed by ‘disjointed service and over-intellectualised food’. ‘Mendes’s passion isn’t in doubt’, but raw squid was ‘claggy’ and other dishes were ‘hit and miss’. The place offers mere ‘fussy joylessness’.
A lovely, link-heavy review of the Kathmandu Inn by Matthew Norman, where the chicken ghorkali is a ‘rivulets-of-sweat-releasing amalgam of cumin, coriander, turmeric … and devilish red chillies’. ‘All the high-street suspects’ appear and each is ‘consistently delicious’ except for tandoori chicken. ‘Rice and breads are likewise faultless.’
Fay Maschler visits Gauthier Soho, where Alexis Gauthier has set up shop after 12 years at Roussillon off Sloane Square. Maschler went twice and had ‘a two-star dinner’ and ‘a four-star lunch’. Langoustine, lettuce, pigeon and tarragon was ‘unpleasant’, though sweetbreads, morel and more lettuce was ‘funky and rich’. Despite this, ‘do hurry along … Gauthier Soho is sort of thrilling and not too expensive.’
Zoe Williams is at the Canton Arms, the Stockwell spin-off of the Anchor & Hope. ‘It’s a lovely old pub’; a game terrine was ’100% fantastic’ and an Arbroath smokie was ‘inherently delicious’. ‘All I can say about’ the pork tonnato ‘is oh my God’. (I had it at the Anchor – it is good.) Chef Trish Hilferty ‘surpasses expectations’.
And blogger Laissez Fare heads to the Loft Project – the post-Mendes semi-pop-up where chefs alternate weekend stints. This time Noma’s sous chef Samuel Miller was at the pass: LF enjoyed 12 courses including raw mackerel, hazelnut, mustard and rye crumbs and lamb tongue, peas, pine and milk skin. ‘Much of the food was full of little miracles.’