The Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell took one look at the menu at this riverside pub conversion and declared, rather puzzlingly, “There’s absolutely nothing I want… maybe they’ve got some chips”. Exactly what caused him to behave more like a fussy 12-year-old than a food-loving (you would hope) fully grown restaurant reviewer is hard to tell: “pickled cucumber”, “curried scallop”, “fennel, datterini, mascarpone”, “escalivada, butterbeans, goat’s curd”, “duck mince, celeriac, olives, toast” – all par for the course, surely, at a vaguely ambitious London restaurant.
Perhaps it was a fake protest, to set up a punchline: “My revolting-sounding duck mince was a staggeringly flavourful mess… the sort of dish you’d tramp through deep snow for: comforting, warm and a revelation of enticing taste.”
Perhaps William didn’t like the unfamiliar foreign words: ‘escalivada’ turned out to be “a plate of room-temperature roasted veg – peppers, aubergines etc… [that] was magnificently rich and pure, a real treasure chest of flavour”, while stracci pasta of mushroom and potato was “almost a carb dish of the year”.
So there you have it: “The Waterman’s Arms is a grower. It’s like a Coldplay song that you try not to like but end up, seduced by the chorus, singing from the rooftops.”
William Sitwell - 2024-10-20The Sunday Times
Charlotte Ivers broke the news that a “properly good modern European restaurant has opened in Barnes” (well, it opened in September 2023) – a “beautiful little place on the river” that looks like a pub from the outside and like a rural French bistro on the inside.
“Unlike every other modern European place in the country, the Waterman’s Arms doesn’t suggest you share. We do so anyway,” she said, picking out for special praise some “exciting” semolina gnocchi with fresh tomato sauce, paella-like seafood rice and a “charming” semi-savoury oat and almond cake.
Charlotte took her editor as a guest and he was apparently pleased with his meal. But given that he lives nearby and she had already complained about the dearth of good restaurants in Barnes, he surely knew about the Waterman’s already.
Charlotte Ivers - 2025-03-30
