What's on the Menu? – A round-up of the latest restaurant reviews

26 April 2010 by
What's on the Menu? – A round-up of the latest restaurant reviews

Glasgow Herald, 19 April
Joanna Blythman finds a spot-on food philosophy at MacSorleys in Glasgow, but wishes chef-proprietor Sam Carswell would dump the fine dining baggage

MacSorleys - review in full >>

The Daily Telegraph, 24 April
Jasper Gerard loves the look of the Dean Street Dining Room, London W1, but rages at the retro food

What's this? Mince and boiled rice. Fish and chips with marrowfat peas. Even Brussels sprouts, which are virtually illegal. Simplicity is fine, but will folk come "oop West" for this? You can even have high tea, featuring sardines on toast. For the complete retro-feel you can ask for rickets. My friend Richard risks "twice-cooked" smoked haddock soufflé. It is moulded like crème caramel, though it doesn't wobble, and swims in a pleasantly light and creamy chive sauce. "Very high-class cooking," he declares, "for a pub." I have Lincolnshire onion tart with a good flaky crust supporting a Burford brown egg that breaks richly over the flan. Onion tarts can be curiously light on the onion front but this one is weeping with them. Tasty. Richard has the most alluring main course: pork cheeks with parsnip mash, glazed carrots and cider. Again this is all a bit ration book, though by the absurdist laws of food trends the recessionary revival of cheap cuts has so boosted their fashionability that they are really expensive. (Dinner for two, £94 including service and two glasses of wine. Rating: 5/10).
Dean Street Dining Room - review in full >>

The Observer, 25 April
Jay Rayner is offended in having to pay more than £100 per head for a dull meal at Gordon Ramsays's new version of Petrus, London SW1

A starter of expertly cooked sweetbreads, a stew of choucroute below, a julienne of carrot above, is solid French cookery. Roast langoustine with watercress soup could knock the ball out of the park were it not that the langoustine were overcooked. Main courses are similarly ho-hum. What should be a killer combination, lobster tail and pork belly, delivers both ingredients monotonously. A duck dish is let down by meanness with the sauce. The best is a dish of scallops with caper berries and caramelised cauliflower which was brought unordered, as though the kitchen knew we'd missed their finest work. We insisted it be charged for. At dessert, a hollow sphere of chocolate, which melts under a drizzle of hot chocolate sauce to reveal a scoop of milk ice cream, finally offers the theatrics one wants for this sort of money, as do petits-fours of vanilla ice cream balls covered in white chocolate and served over billowing dry ice - a bit of whimsy from Ramsay's flagship restaurant in Chelsea. Still, it all feels like too little too late. (Meal for two, including wine and service, £225)
Petrus - review in full >>

The Sunday Times, 26 April
AA Gill welcomes back Bruno Loubet to the UK with the opening of Bistrot Bruno Loubet at The Zetter hotel, London EC1

The room is modern, functional and crowded, with sympathetic lighting, a bar and an open kitchen, much the same as most new restaurants east of Aldwych. The menu is short and brilliantly desirable. I began with snails and meatballs, which were both musty and meaty, with layers of corrupting flavours that were fugitive and memorable. Thierry had a clean and pale skate terrine that was pressed and precious and pristine, like a mermaid's packed lunch. A salmon tartare came with cumin and mint. For the main course, we had a shoulder of lamb, a wood pigeon and a beef daube - all dirty-fingered, rustic combinations that grabbed you roughly by the ears and stuck their tongues down your throat - cooked with a slow care, presented with a functional care. This is the sort of food that has been made welcome and commonplace by the English Victorian-grub revival. But it is, unmistakably, from across the channel. It is very French. (Rating: food 4/5, atmosphere 4/5)
Bistrot Bruno Loubet - review in full >>

By Janet Harmer

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