Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week to 11th August 2025
London Standard
David Ellis had a rotten time at a place that bills itself as a ‘seafood bistro of the future’ but was so bad that he asked himself: “Is this what restaurants are now? Or have I accidentally reviewed a piece of experimental theatre?”
The meal got off to a poor start, with a “mini ‘oyster’ martini” that “tasted the way I imagine dead roses might. But better than the actual oysters, here milky and heavily spawning”. Monkfish skewers were overcooked, while “octopus chunks were chewy, and cooked on a grill that can’t have been hot enough; never mind blackened, the tentacles barely had a tan.” Hake in pangrattato was merely “dull”, but smoked eel and egg yolk raviolo “was plated so disastrously that I wondered if it had met the floor before the china”.
Were there any redeeming features? Yes! The fries were crisp, hot and well salted: “Whoever’s on potatoes needs a raise,” David suggested.
*****
The Guardian
Locatelli at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square
Grace Dent seemed rather surprised to find herself enjoying Giorgio Locatelli’s new spot, created in partnership with “poshish” catering company Searcy’s in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. Admittedly it was “not a patch” on Giorgio’s famous and pricey Locanda Locatelli, which closed earlier this year – but it was pretty, “dashingly handy”, and the food clearly exceeded Grace’s expectations.
“The lunch menu is a million times more interesting than the usual museum or gallery scones and sandwich fare,” she said. “Here, there is piping hot fritto misto, a choice of five fresh pasta dishes, including a juicy bowl of delightfully pungent red gurnard with thick pappardelle, fresh tomato, almonds and black olives that was nothing short of delicious.
“Someone is actually cooking here, not cynically heating things up for tourists.”
*****
Sunday Times
The Bat & Ball, Cuddeston, Oxfordshire
Charlotte Ivers visited a village pub near Oxford that could have been the setting for a rom-com. Taken over by the team behind the Lamb Inn at Little Milton, it is wood-panelled in the pale green now standard in the Cotswolds, and has a chef from Le Manoir. But the gastrofication has not been taken too far: there’s still a darts board, fish and chips on the menu and “the spirit of village pub”.
Chicken liver parfait was “thicker and richer than the ruddiest inhabitant of Chipping Norton”, while fish finger sandwich – a brioche bun with cod in a light batter and homemade tartare sauce – “you could feed to a hungry farmhand or a Michelin inspector and both would be delighted”.
All in all, the Bat & Ball was “a place you’d want to take your American cousin to show them that yes, it’s true, Britain at its best really can be like the movies”.
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles hailed a lunch that “doesn’t put a foot wrong” at a new Italian restaurant on Wapping Wharf – a two-storey block of restaurants in repurposed shipping containers where he has never had a bad meal.
Mark and Karen Chapman, of Cor in Bedminster, present a menu with “no faff or fuss, just cooking that captures the pared-back purity of proper Italian food”.
The highlight for Tom was a dish of melon with prosciutto and tomatoes in which “every ingredient is immaculate, and all it takes is a sprinkle of salt and still more grassy, peppery olive oil, to create a dish of pure summertime succour. Classic, but beautifully done.” His meal ended on a high note with a “peach and basil sorbet that’s River Cafe good”.
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell underwent a Damascene conversion to the lushness of mushy peas – a vegetable whose virtues had previously eluded him – at the latest opening from Mitch Tonks’s West Country fish and seafood chain.
William also declared his general preference for stand-alone restaurants above chains, but nevertheless he awarded Rockfish a very solid mark of four out of five.
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner enjoyed himself at a new Greek restaurant “on the Kensington Riviera, or the Brompton Road as it’s known”, from Asimakos Chaniotis, the Athens-born former executive chef at Pied a Terre in Fitzrovia.
Here he found “moussaka made the way your fantasy Greek grandmother would make it, while tutting about how you need feeding up because you’re so skinny… I doubt there’s a better moussaka to be had in London.” Other classics – stuffed vine leaves; lamb chops; salt-baked seabass – were “executed with serious class”, and accompanied by a wine list that included 37 bottles from Greece and just seven from other countries.
The only exception to this catalogue of authentically Greek cooking – but unfortunately one that stuck in Jay’s memory – was the restaurant’s signature dish, a ‘Greek salad’ that “weirdly seemed to miss the restaurant’s entire raison d’etre”: the cucumbers and tomatoes were chopped “obsessively small” and the feta was whipped into a mousse, so you “end up with something mushy and messy to be spoon-fed to a thoroughly dismayed toddler”. A meal at Mytos is perfect, Jay reckoned – so long as you “avoid the damn salad.”