The Independent, 22 November
John Walsh visits The Mansion, Dulwich, London SE27
The Mansion is a fantastic sight on the road from Dulwich to Crystal Palace. It's a great bulky lump of Victorian architecture, as solid as a fortress, and dominates the landscape. Once it was merely a boozer called The Paxton but, since it was bought by Ben Sowton (the guy responsible for the terrifically groovy White House in Clapham), it's been transformed. The ground floor's painted black outside, the first floor's all brickwork with black trim. Inside, it's not so much a pub as a lounging area, with brown leather sofas, newspapers, a grand piano and a bar attached, almost incidentally.
The Mansion – review in full>>
The Daily Telegraph, 22 November
Jasper Gerard visits Corrigan’s, London W1
Like ships, restaurants are launched with champagne and cheer but can sink without trace. This struck me when I arranged to meet a friend for lunch at a fleetingly fashionable London hang-out near Piccadilly. I'd dined there not long before when Prince Andrew had been at the next table with three impossibly gorgeous creatures. Upon my return, I paced the street looking for said restaurant, increasingly bemused. Belatedly, I realised it had morphed into the building site before me. My friend was inside being informed by a bunch of hard-hats: "Oh, the restaurant's shut, mate. And it ain't coming back, neither."
Corrigan’s – review in full>>
The Guardian, 22 November
Matthew Norman visits Plumber Manor, Sturminster Newton, Dorset
In at least a few of the myriad books to be written about the 2008 US presidential election, a footnote will be devoted to the subject of today's review. Even if it wasn't even the most important electoral influence of its name (that honour going to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Ohio), Plumber Manor still played its unwitting part, because it was to this handsome, 17th-century, rural Dorset house that senior AIG executives repaired in October for a partridge-shooting holiday, just as the Federal Reserve lobbed the insurance giant an additional $37.8bn to bolster the $85bn emergency loan it had made in September. Try as we might, we Brits never suppress a thrill whenever the Americans so much as notice li'l ol' us, and for me Plumber Manor's sudden celebrity across the ocean provided the strongest frisson since my erstwhile Latin student Rachel Weisz was handed an Oscar by that pioneering African-American president Morgan Freeman.
Plumber Manor – review in full>>
The Observer, 23 November
Jay Rayner visits The Buddha Bar, London WC2
One of the curiosities of this week's restaurant - along with 'How do they live with themselves?' and 'Why isn't there a baying mob outside with pitchforks and burning torches?' - is that it should be named after a deity whose followers are famed for their serenity and yet should be capable of engendering in me such a blind, raging, spittle-flecked fury. There will be casualties in the restaurant trade as a result of the current economic turmoil; I sincerely hope London's Buddha Bar is one of them. I should have given up after the hassle of booking. Not merely the five minutes of thrashing hold music nor the irritating demand for my first name (and my usual reply that I only wanted to book a table, not be their pen friend), but also the requirement that I supply an email address. Why? 'Because it's the only way we can confirm you have a reservation.' Really? So putting the name down in a book, the method that's worked for a century or more, isn't good enough?
The Buddha Bar – review in full>>
areyoureadytoorder.com
Jan Moir visits Le Pont de la Tour, London SE1 & Cinnamon Club, London SW1
Is it boring going on about the credit crunch? In the restaurant industry, it is hard not to. Everyone is obsessed. Important questions are asked, over and over again. What is going to happen? How has Tom Aikens got the nerve? Can Le Bouchon Breton possibly survive deflation? And when is my pudding arriving? Of course, what really obsesses chefs at the moment is the most basic thing; how to keep their customers, all of whom are feeling the pinch themselves
Le Pont de la Tour & Cinnamon Club – review in full>>