Aqua Nueva ‘seriously poisoned’ by its design, says critic

London restaurant Aqua Nueva, the first UK venture of Hong Kong-based group Aqua, has been seriously poisoned by its design, according to AA Gill.

The Sunday Times’ famously acerbic food critic says that he can’t imagine what induced anyone to open the Spanish restaurant atop the former Dickins & Jones building on Regent Street. 

“This is the first restaurant for ages that has been seriously poisoned by its decoration,” he says.

Equally unimpressed by Aqua Nueva’s food offer, he adds: “I started with an egg yolk in jelly; it was like a big wine gum of pus, only not that nice. It was cheek-puffingly foul.”

The Guardian’s Matthew Norman finds the experience of eating at The Modern in Manchester to be the complete antithesis of comforting, with charmless décor and poorly executed and over-priced food.

Meanwhile, the Observer’s Jay Rayner reports that William Drabble at Seven Park Place at the St James’s hotel in Mayfair, is cooking some fabulous food but is let down by the restaurant’s over-formal setting and fearful service.

“It sucks the very life out of you,” he says.

For this review in full and more, see What’s on the menu? To book a table, see Caterer Eats Out. Visit Guide Girl for the latest gossip from the fine dining world.


Hong Kong-based restaurant group Aqua to enter the UK >>

Aqua Nueva, London >>

William Drabble to be executive chef at London’s St James’s hotel >>

Menuwatch - Seven Park Place by William Drabble >>


By Kerstin Kühn
 

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