The Sunday Times
Giles Coren had lunch at the latest pub/restaurant from the Public House group (The Pelican, The Hero, The Hart etc), noting that there’s “almost no point in reviewing” a venture from this team: “You don’t need me to come down here in advance . . . delivering some preposterous score to nine decimal places at the end. You can just go. You always can with them.”
He shared his meal with Jesse Burgess of Topjaw, whose social media posts look could well put Giles’s traditional restaurant criticism out of business. This may have been behind Giles’s self-deprecating mood, as he observed, “Restaurant critics have always been pompous bores writing too many words about too little of any interest to the general consumer.”
As to the food, the duo “gasped” at some mackerel, and ate “pale but fruity tomatoes with goat’s curd and big sourdough croutons”, “big curls of very fresh squid and a golden, crunchy, almost explosive batter”, “round, fruity fillets” of John Dory (“like if fish had bums”) and a fish pie that was “clean and white with just a hint of smoke and very sleek, buttery mash”.
Giles Coren - 2026-10-25
