The Daily Telegraph, 6 October
Mark Palmer visits Marco at Stamford Bridge, London SW6

Nothing wrong with those who change their minds - and it's always entertaining when they do so with such vehemence that you know for sure the people they are trying to convince most are themselves. Marco Pierre White told me a number of years ago that nothing in the world would induce him to do a reality TV show (or TV of any kind, for that matter); that he couldn't possibly contemplate opening a chain of restaurants and that asking for ketchup at a half-decent establishment (especially one of his) was akin to breaking wind in a bus queue. And, so, here we are, with Marco winning plaudits for his brooding performance in Hell's Kitchen, with his Frankie's chain of pizzerias (in collaboration with jockey Frankie Dettori) about to expand into Dubai and Shanghai and with ketchup not so much frowned upon by the big man as positively encouraged.

The Guardian, 6 October
Matthew Norman visits Rafters, Sheffield

If ever confirmation was required of the old verity that holds "Travel narrows the mind" (otherwise known as Judith Chalmers's Law, as many of you will already be aware), it came from an inaugural visit to Sheffield. Ever since sharing university digs with a delightful guy from that city during the first wave of major Sheffield bands in the early 80s, before even one Arctic Monkey was so much as conceived, I've had this strong notion of a slightly wasted but dead cool urban centre packed with shabby-smart young people eternally on the top decks of buses en route to gigs and cheap but brilliant nightclubs. I'm not sure how rounded a portrait of a major city one can build purely from the wry insouciance of Joanne and Susanne out of The Human League, but I've never come across anyone from Sheffield (alas, David Blunkett remains a stranger) who wasn't warm, sharp, caustically witty and instinctively phobic about cant and pomposity.
Rafters – The Guardian review in full >>

The Independent, 6 October
Tracey MacLeod visits Texture, London W1

It's impossible to doze off in front of the telly these days without glimpsing at least one group of sweaty novices in chef's whites quaking before a disdainful food critic or scowling chef. I could make a decent living just by accepting every invitation I get to appear as a judge on one of these shows – and let's face it, some of my peers do just that. Having always spurned reality shows because they're watched by "eight million morons", Raymond Blanc is currently doing a Marco, as it's known, by appearing on BBC2's The Restaurant, putting a group of would-be restaurateurs through their paces. It's relatively non-moronic, and offers some useful advice, for the tiny sub-sector of the audience who run restaurants but are nevertheless at home at 8pm on a Wednesday night. But one topic it doesn't touch on is how to hang on to your staff. It's a subject M. Blanc might find a little sensitive right now, with the opening of Texture, an ambitious new restaurant almost entirely staffed by defectors from Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons. Former head chef Agnar Sverrisson and head sommelier Xavier Rousset have set up on their own in central London, and taken a crack squad of former Manoir employees with them.
Texture - The Independent review in full >>

The Times, 6 October
Giles Coren visits Bincho Yakitori, London SE1

“Have you eaten in isakaya before?” asked the waitress, all smiles and eagerness, little red T-shirt tucked into her black trousers, the wide, grey Thames pouring slowly past the window like lava, scores of shiny tables gleaming under spotlights, stainless-steel open kitchen sprawling down one side, and middle-aged ladies from out of town chittering with that special excitement day-trippers derive from eating inside a landmark (in this case the Oxo tower). “I have indeed,” I said. “But not in this one.” Nor in one anything like this one. I have eaten in isakayas only in Japan. And even there in only one or two. During a whirlwind trip to Tokyo last year, I found time between life-changing sushi moments and deep-fried epiphanies to duck into one or two of the little pub-type fellows – isakayas – which hunker unexpectedly between skyscrapers, ramshackle wooden things sometimes, apparently forgotten for a thousand years, looking hospitable, ancient, spiritual, full of life, like something out of Monkey.
Bincho Yakitori – The Times review in full >>

Are You Ready To Order?
Jan Moir visits Galicia Restaurant, London W10, and La Plaza, London, W11

Tapas wars have broken out on Portobello Road, where the air is thick with reproach and flying chorizo. For 19 years, the incumbent tortilla shifting shack in this part of the capital has been Galicia, a gruff Spanish restaurant with a popular tapas bar and backroom comedor. The food here is basic and hearty, and so are the customers; everyone from Spanish construction workers with cement dust still on their shoes, to David and Samantha Cameron chowing down on bistec de buey and chewy red wine. Despite the lugubrious staff - it’s like being an incomer in a village: you’ve got to be a regular for about five years before they’ll even say hello - the atmosphere is always cheerful. Or perhaps I should say, was always cheerful. News that a new Spanish restaurant has just opened up nearby has gone down like arsenic in the sangria. Even worse, the man who has opened the new restaurant was a friend of the Galicians, and used to supply and launder their tablecloths! The drama is positively Shakespearean.
Galicia and La Plaza – Are You Ready to Order? review in full >>