What's on the Menu? – A round-up of the latest restaurant reviews

28 August 2009 by
What's on the Menu? – A round-up of the latest restaurant reviews

Bloomberg, 25 August
Richard Vines checks out a selection of the capital's best alfresco eating spots, starting with The Ritz, London W1

Why? The Ritz has one of the most beautiful dining rooms in London and the outside terrace, beside Green Park, is idyllic. The cooking and service are faultless and the prices aren't as scary as you might expect. Why not? The Ritz has a strict dress code for London: jacket and tie for men, "elegant" for women. The wine prices are formidable. Champagne (Taittinger) is 19 pounds ($31.42) a glass, while the recommended white (2006 Sauvignon Blanc, Gravitas, New Zealand) is 16 pounds. The menu? Native lobster with cauliflower puree and ginger broth; roast brill with spiced carrot puree, summer vegetables and verbena veloute; bramble souffle with green apple sorbet. (Lunch, £36 for three courses with coffee and sweets; dinner, £45 for three courses, £65 for four courses).

Evening Standard, 27 August
David Sexton enjoys the enticing and well executed menu at The Fellow, London N1

A pea salad (£6.25) was perfectly refreshing, well seasoned, with some leaves, lots of mint and some nice feta cheese, and the peas had been lightly blanched - does anybody actually like wholly raw ones on a plate, even though one eats them happily from the pod? Pan-fried duck egg with pea shoots and crispy bacon (£6.75) was well executed, the two thick rashers of bacon cooked brittle without being toothbreaking, and some unannounced little scrapings of confit duck mixed in with the peashoots for extra heartiness. Flank steak was surprisingly tender, two big slices seared on the outside and rare inside, served with a rich sauce of wild mushrooms, and watercress (£12.50): excellent. (Two course Sunday lunch menu, £19.50. Rating: 3/5).
The Fellow - review in full >>

Metro, 26 August
Andy Lynes says More in London W1 is currently serving some of the most exciting grub in the city

‘I'm not sure what an Italian would think of this,' remarked my dining companion as she hoovered up a prawn and sorrel risotto sprinkled with a deeply inauthentic chilli gremolata, that would usually consist only of chopped parsley, garlic and lemon rind. It's a flourish indicative of More's free-your-mind-and-your-stomach-will-follow approach that also partners lamb cutlets and sweetbreads with a great dollop of minted pea purée studded with cherry tomatoes, some lightly cooked little gem lettuce leaves and a curry butter sauce. What sounds on the page like a complete mess was, in reality, an utterly delicious plate of food, if not the most smartly presented. The fact that the superb quality lamb had been cooked and rested to rosy pink perfection didn't hurt either. (A meal for two with wine, water and service, costs about £75. Rating: 4/5).
More - review in full >> Time Out, 27 August
Anjali Wason checks out Rasa Mudra, London E11, an understated eaterie serving food from the southern Indian state of Kerala

This is only the second place in London where you can find dishes originating from the Syrian Christian community of central Kerala: erachi olathiyathu, for example, a dish of stir-fried pieces of meat (lamb here, but beef in Kerala) exploding with ginger, chilli and chunks of coconut flesh, or kappayum meenum vevichathu, a toddy shop snack of pieces of kingfish steamed with tapioca and tossed with tamarind and coconut. But Kerala's delectable Mappila cuisine - the complex cooking of the coastal Muslim communities, with its 50 types of breads, three regional styles of biriani and a unique blend of spices - is disappointingly sparse on this menu. We forgave this oversight after one bite of the signature dish of a 'Ms Mariamma from Trivandrum', arachu vacha meen, a subtle, simple dish of tilapia topped with coconut and mustard seeds. (Meal for two, with drinks and service, around £55. Rating: 4/5)
Rasa Mudra - review in full >>

By Janet Harmer

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