The Guardian - October
MATTHEW FORT takes the family to LE MOULIN DE LOURMARIN in Lourmarin, France
The cooking is characterised by a lightness and freshness. The use of herbs in huge quantities results in an aromatic intensity that amounts almost to a medicinal bitterness. This astringency is heightened further by vinegars, extracts, infusions and citrus fruits. It's an approach that puts familiar and less familiar ingredients in an unexpected light. Not all these transformations were equally successful but, overall, the dishes were interesting, provocative and delicious. Some were utterly wonderful, with a remarkable purity of flavour.
(Meal for seven, around £535 with wine; marks, 18.5/20)
The Sunday Times - 5 October
AA GILL goes all patriotic at St John Bread and Wine on Commercial Street, London E1
St John's Bread and Wine is a plain room - Jane Eyre sort of plain. The menu is a list of convivial, hospitable combinations that you won't have seen out together before. Brown shrimp and white cabbage, lentils and goat curd, duck leg and carrots, and brawn with pickled red cabbage were all exemplary, intelligent, exciting dishes. There were others, though, that suffered from that English belief that hardship itself is a virtue - such as duck neck, chicory and watercress. Eating duck's necks is like eating soggy dog breath.
(Four out of five stars)
The Sunday Telegraph - 5 October
MATTHEW NORMAN wishes he lived next to the Brackenbury in London W6
After well over a decade as a minor foodie legend, for its imaginative cooking and piffling prices, the restaurant had been taken over by a new owner and a new chef only five days before we went. On this very early form, it seems in safe hands, although the menu is less imaginative and dirt cheap than I remember it.
(Mains, around £13.50; marks, 7.5/10)
The Observer - 5 October
JAY RAYNER says the 700-mile journey to THE SUMMER ISLES HOTEL in Ross-shire, Scotland, is well worth it
I will do a lot of things for the Summer Isles hotel, including flying to Inverness, hiring a car and driving for two hours further north along winding single-tracks. Dinner begins in the lounge and the bar with canap‚s. The night I was there, it was delicate sesame toasts using local lemon soul instead of prawns, plus black olives and divine salami. The chunky langoustines in our first course, wrapped in a samosa of filo pastry and served on a dark tamarind sauce, were so local they could probably have found their own way to the hotel for dinner, if so inclined.
Was it worth the 1,400-mile round trip from London? Oh yes, without a doubt.
(Dinner for two, including wine and service, £110)
The Independent - 4 October
TRACEY MACLEOD gets carried away at L'ENCLUME in Cartmel, Cumbria
Instead of playing it safe and doling out comfort food to tourists on the Beatrix Potter trail, [Simon Rogan] has chosen to emulate his hero, El Bulli's Ferran Adri…, probably the world's most exciting and influential chef. Rogan's menu is a wild ride of crazy-sounding combinations, obscure ingredients and eccentric treatments.
(Meal for two, from £80, without wine)