Sicillian restaurant Mennula impresses critic

03 December 2009 by
Sicillian restaurant Mennula impresses critic

Newly opened Mennula, which now fills the site once occupied by Gennaro Contaldo's Passione restaurant, impresses Guy Dimond of Time Out in this week's London restaurant reviews.

Sicilian-born chef-proprietor Santino Busciglio was brought up in the UK and now serves a more contemporary and refined version of the home-cooking of his birth place. "Mennula's already showing great promise and reliably good cooking," he says, although he advises that there are some hiccoughs in the service that need to be sorted out.

Unfortunately, restaurants in other reviews are not regarded so favourably. In the Metro, Marina O'Loughlin, describes the experience of Proud Cabaret, which aims to offer London a cabaret ‘as decadent as Berlin during the Weimar years' instead gives what is "about as dissolute as a Romford hen party, but a smidge less entertaining."

The food, provided by Absolute Taste, Gordon Ramsay's outside catering arm, is not much better with O'Loughlin describing it "as cheesy as the surroundings". While she finds the quality of ingredients good, she says "process has sucked the life out of it. Sticky toffee pudding, served hilariously with Ovaltine custard, is so thuddingly dense it could be used to lag pipes."

Fay Maschler also finds eating out this week to be a disappointment. As a lover of Chinese food, she had looked forward to visiting the Chinese Cricket Club, which recently opened at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in The City.

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.

By Janet Harmer

E-mail your comments to Janet Harmer here.

If you have something to say on this story or anything else join the debate at Table Talk - Caterer's new networking forum. Go to www.caterersearch.com/tabletalk

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