Evening Standard, 6 May
Fay Maschler enjoys a seasonal British menu charmingly served by owner Thierry Tomasin at Angelus, 4 Bathurst Street, London W2
In the main course, ballotine of Cotswold chicken with wild mushroom and fennel risotto (à la carte) was a meticulous dish with satisfying reference to classical techniques. Seared sea bream with salad Niçoise (set menu) had a gleam of healthiness and a nice logic to the combination of ingredients even if they might not be classified as quintessentially British. Tomasin’s admirable view of a restaurant meal — quite different from that of most employers — is that customers should “forget about work for two or three hours”. To this end, Angelus is open all day with the options of a brunch menu and a lounge menu as well as the regular list. Apparently, businessmen and women frequently take advantage of the chance to meet and eat mid-afternoon.
Angelus - review in full >>
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Metro, 6 May
Marina O’Loughlin praises the great food, but splutters at the ridiculously high prices at Dolada, 13 Albemarle Street, London W1
The food just misses being staggeringly good, though some dishes – like that pigeon, ripely gamey, ruby red, enriched with liver and the sticky sweetness of Marsala and served on a slump of perfect polenta – actually get there. Admirably, most of the cheeses and all the excellent salumi are home-made. The 'new' carbonara is sunshine-yellow pasta topped with an egg yolk cooked for half an hour at a random 68ºC to create the ideal unctuous sauce. The waiter mixes it table-side with glorious, deeply flavoured crisp pancetta (home-made) and a cloud of piquant pecorino. Such larks. Tiramisu, in a bizarre plastic beaker, is all froth and flavour; ice creams are ethereally light but vibrant with pistachio and vanilla and hazelnut.
Dolada – review in full >>
Time Out, 7 May
Guy Dimond says Comptoir Libanais, 64 Wigmore Street, London W1, looks set to do for Lebanese food what Carluccio’s did for Italian – give it “affordable chic” cachet
The small meze plate allows you to try several of the warm and cold dips and salads. Glistening arils of pomegranate top a smoky aubergine dip (baba ganoush), chickpeas nestle atop a whirl of houmous. Shards of preserved turnip, dyed with beetroot juice, give the platter a hyperreal effect. But the flavours are real enough. The tabbouleh sang with lemon juice and fresh parsley flavours, and stuffed vine leaves – too often the culprits in sub-standard Mediterranean food – had a freshly prepared texture, with good bite. So far so Leb, but there are also some more innovative dishes to tickle your tastebuds. We were smitten by the pumpkin kibbeh, which look like Scotch eggs but are filled with another layer of kibbled wheat mixed with pumpkin, and an inner layer of ground walnut and pomegranate molasses.This was served with a romesco-style dip.
Comptoir Libanais – review in full >>
By Janet Harmer
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