The Sunday Telegraph, 9 October
Elfreda Pownall takes a picky pal from Paris to dine at the Square in London
Cleverness is what this restaurant is about: one gets a strong sense of a chef with perfect pitch experimenting with combinations of ingredients for his own amusement. As well as cleverness, Henri claimed to detect a sneery attitude from his waiters. Ye gods! This from someone who eats in Paris! But to me the waiters, whirling about, turning tables in seconds, seemed brisk, but distantly polite. Henri's main course, a perfectly cooked pigeon with sweet and sour cherries and a caramelised endive tatin, restored his equanimity.
"This is wonderful. In fact, perfect," he said. Mine, too, was first-rate - a slab of wild salmon on a chiffonade of spring onions and ginger with a fine, eggy ravioli filled with lobster meat, claws and all.
The Sunday Times, 9 October
AA Gill ventures as far as the Abergavenny Food Festival and dines at the Bell at Skenfrith, Monmouthshire
I might have been tougher on the Bell if Anthony [Bourdain] hadn't been there, but he wisely pointed out that their winning quality was not entirely what they were doing, but what they weren't doing. They hadn't set the table with a linen cupboard of napery and a canteen of silver. They didn't have fawning butler service or the Gutenburg wine list. They left the bottles on the table and kept the restaurant relaxed and comfortable. They had resisted giving in to all that fine-dining-event insecurity that plagues country hotels. What was left was good, secret local ingredients, with just a touch too much effort, too many pastry baskets, too much fiddling and too many notes. "But," said Anthony, "it could have been tall food. And he hasn't dragged a fork through the sauce. That's not just a small mercy, it's a f***ing miracle."
The Observer, 9 October
Jay Rayner is underwhelmed by his visit to London Italian Cecconi's
The pasta, as I say, was good: silky ribbons of pappardelle with rabbit and olives; solid ravioli of duck and sage, tasting of both advertised ingredients. And hoo-bloody-rah! This is one of London's most expensive Italian restaurants (think £8 for three medium-sized ravioli). Getting pasta right isn't a cause for celebration. It's a minimum standard. I've said before that I think Italians do main courses badly, but here Cecconi's made an extra effort to underachieve. Truffled roast chicken not only didn't taste of truffle, it didn't taste much of chicken either. And it was huge, the leg worryingly plump, as if the kitchen had slaughtered Foghorn Leghorn for me. Eating it was relentless, until I gave up, bored. We felt the same way about the osso bucco. Yes, there was a rush of saffron from the risotto and the veal was tender, but the dish lacked the grace £17 should buy you. A side dish of fried zucchini were not cut thinly enough and were floury, which suggested the oil had not been hot enough.
Time Out, 12 October
Guy Dimond enjoys the food and the surroundings at China Tang in London's Dorchester hotel
China Tang is a beaut of a restaurant and bar, with no expense spared to evoke colonial Shanghai during the art deco period. I was so busy admiring the opulence of the interior I walked into a table and sent silver chopsticks crashing to the heavily carpeted floor. There are three separate and confusing menus, written in transliterated English that neither Chinese nor English speakers can make much sense of - cheung fun, the slithery tubes of rice pasta with various fillings, simply becomes "cannelloni". You should never order a dessert in a Chinese restaurant, but we did. This was a revelation. Pastry chef Neil Kua is a trained French pastry chef, and a dab hand at combining Oriental flavours with the lighter textures and sweeter tooth we tend to prefer in the West. The mangosteen meringue was a triumph. We liked lots of things about China Tang. The service was charming and hard to fault; the place looks fantastic; and the execution of the dishes is good to excellent. Only one thing grated: our wine waiter. He was over-enthusiastic about "upselling" wine and when I asked the price of his wine suggestions - how common of me! - I imagined a flicker of disdain.