The Sunday Times
Giles Coren sampled two contrasting venues: a “humming East End boozer” and a “serene, high-ceilinged drawing room” in South Kensington, each of which lived up to its address.
The Prince Arthur was “loud” in both noise (music, laughter, screaming kids) and food – the latter including a big slab of “beef dripping toast piled with richly seasoned flatiron tartare, the chewy shoulder beef full of capers and cornichons and tabasco and all that stuff”, half a pound of rare and charred bavette with real chips and cress and a rhubarb ‘bombe Alaska’ that was “just the thing”.
The Lavery was “gorgeous.. just wow… full of sunlight and soft spring air and gleaming alabaster, mirrors and bas-reliefs”, with food (asparagus, gnocchi, stuffed rabbit leg and Middle White pork chop) whose “quiet” flavours were “precise and sexy”.
Giles declined to choose between the two, declaring: “I need both in my life”.
Giles Coren - 2025-04-13The Guardian
For Grace Dent, this “beautiful” and “dreamily restored Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse” opposite the Natural History Museum is “one of London’s loveliest new places to eat”; indeed, it is “by no small margin the new emperor” of the Mediterranean small plates style that has become ubiquitous in recent years.
The “wholesome, rustic, yet semi-decadent modern European cooking” makes it a perfect venue for fans of the River Cafe (chef Yohei Furuhashi’s former haunt), she suggested – and at a fraction of the price.
Grace's favourite dish came last: a chocolate mousse with Agen prunes that was, she said, “one of the most delicious things being served on Planet Earth right now. This plump, puckered, glossy quenelle of joy with two fat, boozy prunes makes every other chocolate mousse in the UK taste like Instant Whip.”
Grace Dent - 2025-04-27
