Review of the Reviews
The Sunday Times - 15 June
AA GILL on BENARES, London SW7
It's another boutique Indian restaurant. Taking food high end, as the Americans say, is a mixed blessing. Restaurateurs tend simply to up the perceived value of ingredients - making pizza with lobster and truffles, say - while losing the essential honesty and earthiness that made it winning in the first place. Too often, they're working-class girls with posh accents. The mitigation for Indian food is that it was very grand in the first place and had to start off in reduced circumstances in this country. The problem is that to get customers to pay more than £5 for a curry, chefs have Frenchified it, adding garnishes and European ingredients when actually what it needed was to be made more authentically Asian. Happily, Benares remains true to its heritage.
(Rating: three stars. Three-course meal, £13)
The Observer - 15 June
JAY RAYNER at London's SAVOY GRILL
All I can say is that Wareing's Savoy Grill is now a fabulous place to eat - a class act from start to finish. I love the light, wood-panelled walls and the chequer-board carpet, the striped banquettes and the subtle gold ceiling. He has created a serious, buzzy, top-end restaurant, full of the glamorous chatter that you want from the word "Savoy". Look, Ned Sherrin was there the night I went, and you can't get much more glamorous than that.
(Three-course dinner £35)
The Independent - 14 June
TRACEY MacLEOD at Ramsay's BOXWOOD CAFE, Berkeley hotel, London SW1
Despite the fancy presentation, it was still just about possible to believe that this was casual caf‚-style eating, an impression reinforced by a shared dish of clams, baked on the half-shell under a garlicky herb and breadcrumb crust. Main courses, however, were refined and worked over to a degree that signalled a classically trained chef who can't quite let his hair down.
The Sunday Telegraph - 15 June
MATTHEW NORMAN visits Jean-Christophe Novelli's AUBERGE DU LAC, Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire
Our starters were good but lifeless in comparison. Seared red tuna carpaccio was beautiful but no more than "very pleasant but unmemorable" according to a friend even less taken with the deep-fried rock oyster that came with it. Yet had we been served fungoid toenails of Nepalese mountain goat on a bed of gravel, that would have been acceptable in view of what was to come. My friend's spiced spring Welsh lamb, with Szechwan pepper and a truffly scallop, was so spectacular he had to admit it was worth the £30.
The Daily Telegraph - 14 June
JAN MOIR on Giancarlo Vatteroni's fusion menu at LA CONTENTA, London W1
He calls the food he is cooking here Italian Progressive, which, frankly, is just asking for trouble. It sounds like chocolate spaghetti with duck cupcakes. It sounds like something Berlusconi might want to join… Not many can do this kind of Italian/fusion well, but chef Vatteroni hits the spot more often than not and it seems clear that this restaurant is going to be a good choice for a casual lunch, even a good, crisp pizza from the wood-fired oven or a more ambitious meal such as the selection of dishes for two to share, including a steak tagliata and sea bass roasted in a rock salt crust.
(A meal for two, excluding drinks and service, costs £50)
