The Daily Telegraph, 10 November
Mark Palmer visits Bell’s Diner, Bristol

Big debate about where to eat in Bristol. A friend who lives in Clifton recommends either trendy Goldbrick House or fashionable Bordeaux Quay, but another Bristolian, Xanthe Clay, Weekend's cookery writer, isn't so sure. She comes up with various alternatives, although it seems that for a town this size, Bristol isn't exactly the brightest of stars in the restaurant firmament. Eventually, we settle on Bell's Diner, where Chris Wicks has been toiling away for more than a decade. Xanthe, who I'd never met before, agrees to be my guest. Wicks is in vogue because he's a great admirer of Heston Blumenthal, of Fat Duck fame.

The Independent, 10 November
John Walsh visits Hibiscus, London W1

Walking into Hibiscus from the howling clangour of Regent Street is like walking into the living-room of somebody making industrial supplies of marmalade. It's slightly too warm, and everywhere you look, it's terribly orange: the walls are pale wood panels, the carpet's a Fifties smudge of browns, the chandelier a riot of yellow globes, and every place-setting features an orange "cover plate" the size of an Ascot Ladies' Day hat. In contrast, the doors leading to the kitchen are designed like stern black slates. Comfort eating out here, serious gastro-endeavour in there, they seem to say. And one enters with high expectations, because this is the famous Hibiscus restaurant of Ludlow, Shropshire, which three years ago picked up two Michelin stars for its owners Claude and Claire Bosi. In a bold move earlier this year, the Bosis shut the Ludlow operation and moved the entire brigade to the metropolis.
Hibiscus – The Independent review in full >>

The Times, 10 November
Giles Coren visits Divo, London SW1

From the moment I walked into Divo, the plush new Ukrainian restaurant near Trafalgar Square, my plan was to love it. And if I didn’t love it, and couldn’t love it, then to write it up as if I loved it anyway, and leave you, my perspicacious and sharp-witted readers, to read my true meaning. “The biggest, richest, most abundant curtains you will ever see,” I was going to write. “The thickest carpets. The biggest chairs. From the flat-screen televisions in rococo frames mounted at slightly wonky angles to the bottles of Cristal priced at a keen £600 and the waitresses dressed as Alpine airport sex shop souvenirs, everything about Divo says ‘class’.” But I wasn’t sure if I could make it last a whole piece.
Divo – The Times review in full >>

The Observer, 11 November
Jay Rayner visits McCoys Rooftop at the Baltic, Newcastle

I am often asked by what criteria I choose the restaurants I review. Well here's one: did they bother to answer the phone when I attempted to book a table or did it click over to voicemail? Granted, I have particular issues around leaving voicemail messages with restaurants. They are to do with a) choosing pseudonyms and b) being too dozy to recall which one I used when they call back. Even so, does it not undermine one's confidence in the service a restaurant might offer if the very first point of contact, booking a table, is handled by an answer machine? A human being saying hello at the end of a phone genuinely is the least you can hope for.
McCoys Rooftop at the Baltic – The Observer review in full >>

areyourreadytoorder.co.uk
Jan Moir visits L’Autre Pied, London W1

By the time I get to L’Autre Pied, S is already sitting at the bar eating foie gras and drinking champagne. Get him. He’s not the sort of date to fret if one is late, or pound the pavements outside in a bid to kill time. He just gets on with it. Sometimes I wonder if he even notices I am there at all, but perhaps that’s harsh. ‘Hello,’ he says, as I arrive. ‘Could you put my coat in that cupboard over there.’ His nice portion of foie gras is perfectly seared, with the requisite carapace of crisp texture, and is served with a foam cap of Granny Smith apples, plus an onion and apple rubble underneath. It is both clever and good, which are never things you could say about him. After he has polished this off, we go to our table, where he plans on eating even more food, and not speaking very much. I hang up his coat with a sigh.
L’Autre Pied – areyoureadytoorder.co.uk review in full >>

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