The guardian - 19 July
Matthew Fort orders the ox heart at St John Bread and Wine, London E1
What counts in a St John dish - and, by the same token, one at StJB&W - is taste, or taste and flavour. You are beaten around the taste-buds with them, although they need not be of a hefty, hectoring nature. Indeed, some of the dishes had a surprising delicacy. I know that ox heart in any form won't make it on to many people's plates, but let me make a plea: it is as mild-mannered as a dray horse, with a delectable firmness. It needed the horseradish to make it stop being bashful. (Rating 16/20. Meal per head, about £40)
The Daily Telegraph - 19 July
Jan Moir on a limited menu and service at the Carved Angel in Dartmouth, Devon
No one looks particularly happy, especially as something really does seem to have happened in the kitchen. Our starters arrive 70 minutes after we have sat down and the main courses 40 minutes later. This is bad enough, but the maître d' is too busy ordering everyone how to eat their food that he doesn't bother to apologise... Perhaps this is the essence of the new Carved Angel, a kind of make-do-and-mend restaurant that seems to have got its food costs down to a ridiculous amount and has a funny notion of hospitality and customer care. It cannot be true that it buys one box of food to last all week, but that is the way it seems. (Lunch for two, excluding drinks and service, £47)
TimeOut - 23 July
Sejal Sukhadwala visits N20 on Whetstone High Road, London N20
The menu is a curious read: almost a throwback to the early 1990s, it's a clich‚ of all the ingredients and dishes that one would associate with the era - crostini and bruschetta, prosciutto and polenta, carpaccio and caponata. Dishes are chargrilled or pan-fried; studded with sun-dried (sorry, sunblush) tomatoes; drizzled with a flavoured oil or balsamic vinegar (aged, of course); accompanied by a jus, a confit or a pesto, and trussed up with too much rocket and Parmesan. This was ground-breaking stuff on restaurant menus 10 or 15 years ago - but in 2003? London's restaurant culture has evolved to a degree where these now over-familiar ingredients, flavours and cooking techniques, used simply by themselves, no longer excite or challenge the taste-buds. (Meal for two with wine and service, about £110)
The Sunday Times - 20 July
Giles Coren explores Shanghai cuisine at Aaura, London W1
The standard dim sum dishes were competent but unspecial. Char-siu pork buns were clean and sweet, the cheung fun (filled noodle blankets) were a little stodgy, the congee (rice porridge) with salt pork and preserved egg was mild and cute. But then there were wonders. "Suckling pig, jellyfish with two roasts" was unbelievable. (Rating: 7/10)
The Sunday Telegraph - 20 July
Elfreda Pownall at the Michelin-starred Juniper, Manchester
Paul Kitching's menu is largely a tease - the unusual elements that loom large in print appear on the plate only as tiny dribbles of piped lines of colour (and no well-defined taste). He also likes to use sweet elements (the praline, the fudge and the marshmallows) in savoury dishes; which, together with the powders, foams and odd conjunctions (peanuts and morels), seem to be the building blocks of the Juniper repertoire. Not scary, but not nearly as funny as the chef seems to think they are. (Three-course set dinner, £32.50)