The Guardian, 3 May 2008
Matthew Norman visits Panoramic, Liverpool

With a mixture of hope and expectation, with a small majority of the chips riding on the former, I ask readers in Liverpool to forgive what follows. It's not that you will find any unfunny gags about lads of seven asking the visitor to Anfield for a fiver to mind his Merc ("Don't worry, son," says the driver. "I'm leaving the rottweiler in the back." "Oh yeah, mister," says the boy. "Put out fires, can it?"). Such witless stereotyping we can safely leave to the late Bernard Manning and the Tory candidate for London mayor.
Panoramic – Guardian review in full >>

The Independent, 3 May
John Walsh visits Le Cassoulet, Croydon, Surrey

A top French restaurant in Croydon? My dear, how priceless. The suburban C-word has picked up a lousy reputation over the years, for urban sprawl, urban grot, listless violence, rubber-band "facelifts", chavs, feral dogs and the unlovely atmosphere of the Fairfield Hall. So much so that the buzz about Le Cassoulet has almost been drowned by snobbish guffaws: surely, they say, Croydon's idea of haute cuisine is a meat balti.
Le Cassoulet – Independent review in full >>

The Independent on Sunday, 4 May
Terry Durack visits Apsleys at the Lanesborough in London SW1

It sounds intriguing: take the dining-room of a five-star hotel near Hyde Park Corner, give it an expensive facelift, hire an Italian chef who happens to be British, and put on a menu of simple, rustic, seasonally driven Italian fare. And it was intriguing, in 2006, when the excellent Theo Randall at The InterContinental opened. But now, another five-star hotel near Hyde Park Corner has given its dining-room an expensive facelift, hired an Italian chef who happens to be British, etc etc. Christened Apsleys, after Apsley House across the way, it is a world apart from the sleek minimalism of Theo Randall and, indeed, the kitschy mass of potted palms and chinoiserie that marked its previous incarnation as The Conservatory.
Apsleys – Independent review in full >>

The Sunday Times, 4 May
Rod Liddle visits Coles in Marlborough, Wiltshire

I was in Pizza Express in Marlborough one lunchtime recently when the whole place suddenly filled with neatly attired, cheerfully mewing schoolchildren. They were from the local toff school, of course, for which this rather thin-lipped and clenched-buttocked market town is famous. I found it vaguely shocking, all these little monkeys having upmarket pizza for lunch, sitting in a restaurant at the age of 14 with inherited ease and side salads. The waiters – local, nontoff kids, not long out of school themselves – traipsed around with expressions of wearied hatred. I quietly asked one of them if this was a regular occurrence. “Every day, without fail,” he whispered. “I feel like a f***ing dinner lady. And the thing that gets me is that they always order sides.”
Coles – Sunday Times review in full >>

areyourreadytoorder.co.uk
Jan Moir visits The Chicago Rib Shack, London

The Shack is back, claim the adverts. And sure enough, a new approximation of the Chicago Rib Shack has transmogrified in Knightsbridge, nearly 10 years after the last one closed down. It has the same revolving front door, the same brick walls and the same devotion to all things piggy, in the form of pulled pork, whole roast piglets, smoked ribs, St Louis cut ribs, half rack ribs and rib ribs. In fact, you could say that they have the most famous ribs in London, if that accolade did not already belong to Kate Moss, or perhaps even her scrawny, midriff-baring, badly beehived friend, Amy Winehouse.
Chicago Rib Shack – areyoureadytoorder.co.uk review in full >>

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