The Times, 19 November
Giles Coren returns from TV stardom to check out Dine in London's High Holborn
Dine is a joy. The chef is a chap called Thomas Han and comes from Roussillon, the little Pimlico diamond about which I have raved many times, and he's bloody good. Open ravioli of big fat Burgundy snails, Yorkshire mallard with sautéd figs and a spanking saddle and leg of Lincolnshire rabbit demonstrated perfectly how to elevate "cuisine paysanne" to something posher without losing one's way in perfumed poncery. (Cooking score: eight out of 10. Dinner £30)
The Daily Telegraph, 19 November
Jan Moir is depressed by the food on offer at the Royal Oak Gastro Pub in King's Burton, Staffordshire
The mean bowl of leek and potato soup is thin and tasteless, with crags of undercooked potato breaking the surface, while a miserable hunk of anaemic baguette plus a foil-wrapped pat of butter lurk by its side. Another starter of black pudding and potato features these main elements sliced and built into a ridiculous tower. The pudding itself is fine, but the ghostly, grey spuds taste as if they were cooked and cooled some decades ago. Part of the problem at the Royal Oak Gastro Pub is that the menu is too big. There are 27 main courses on the list and very little here can be freshly cooked and prepared. (Meal for two, excluding drinks and service, £40)
The Independent, 19 November
Tracey MacLeod takes Nigel Slater to Roast in London but finds the cooking isn't rustic enough
The menu reads wonderfully well. Here are things that disappeared long ago from restaurant bills of fare: home-made jellied eels with malt vinegar, Coronation chicken salad, rare ox heart with Worcestershire onions, dittander and bone marrow. Nigel was impressed with the spinach-like sea beet which came with a main course of hake. Less impressive was his main course of half a roast chicken, an enormous thing served with a whole boat of creamy bread sauce. This was nothing special, with flabby, rather than crisp skin, and a distinct lack of flavour. Smoked suckling pig with bull's blood lettuce and port and cranberry chutney sounded like the kind of two-fisted dish that would satisfy any market trader, but was actually blandly genteel. Unless the cooking gets
messier round the edges, the flavours bigger, Roast will be sidelined as a pleasant place to bring foreign guests looking
for a touch of Cockney atmosphere.
(Food rating: three out of five stars. £40 per head including wine and service)
The Guardian, 19 November
Matthew Norman wishes he hadn't gone to Le Relais de Venise in London's Marylebone district
The scam is this: punters are crammed in at weeny tables, closer together than the average conjoined twins, and given no choice until the puddings. The menu, if this document deserves that title, states that "a green salad with walnuts" will be followed by a "trimmed entrecôte steak served with its famous secret sauce and French fries." The charge is £17. The salad [was] six lettuce leaves, not wildly fresh, garnished with chopped walnut and dressed with a repulsive, oily dressing that would never get past the quality-control team at Kraft. This dish must have cost 20p at wholesale. Pricing the main course is trickier. What such abysmal beef costs I've no idea. (Food rating: 1/10. £30-plus including drinks and service)
The Observer, 20 November
Jay Rayner falls for the peasant fare at Club Gascon's newly refurbished sibling, Comptoir Gascon, opposite London's Smithfield meat market
A starter of home-made black pudding with soft slices of caramelised apples rescued the honour of that noble dish from the violation it received on my watch in Nottingham a few weeks back. This was savoury and sweet, and thick-textured; crisp outside and dense within. My cassoulet was simply outrageous and made me hope that the French paradox - lots of heavy animal fats, but not that many heart attacks - would work for me, too. Here was a leg of confit duck, protruding like a wrecked ship from the crusty stew of white beans - on top of it, chunks of Toulouse sausage.
(Meal for two including wine and service, £70)