Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 14th June 2026
The Guardian
Grace Dent tipped the London debut from Birmingham-based chef Aktar Islam as “one of the restaurant openings of 2026”, serving 300-year-old Awadhi cooking from the royal courts of Lucknow in a “charmingly eccentric”, higgledy-piggledy listed townhouse near Borough Market.
A meal here is a “wholly gorgeous experience”, she says. “The food may be labour-intensive and styled with precision, but, thankfully, it’s still ruddy delicious and generously portioned. They aim to stuff you.”
Highlights included a slow-cooked dal Bukhara in which urad lentils, butter and cream “meet in spectacular decadence”, while the star of the show was mutanjan dam biryani: “a mountain of fragrant rice with melting, slow-cooked oxtail and bags of sweet carrot”.
*****
The Observer
Kieran Morris had both his taste buds and his mind blown at the capital’s other high-end Indian opening, this one from Dubai-based chef Himanshu Saini, which he hailed as an “extraordinary restaurant [that] puts the title ‘London’s best Indian’ laughably out of reach for the foreseeable future.”
Kieran’s first bite, “a popping-candy pani puri full of pickled pineapple (repeat five times)… lit up my senses like nothing I’d ever experienced, gastronomic or otherwise.” It was followed by mushroom chai, genre-bending chickpea and strawberry chaat with yoghurt ice-cream, tortellini stuffed with gorgonzola dolce on a bed of smoked butter chicken and a rich lamb chop, all of which continued the good work.
“Finally, the didactic showpiece at the heart of Trèsind’s approach to cuisine: the khichdi of India, in which 21 items are mixed, trolleyside, into a humble dal-and-rice porridge… The end result was soothing but mind-bendingly complex, like eating the Bhagavad Gita by the spoonful.”
*****
Financial Times
Jay Rayner found there was a lot to like about Senegalese cuisine at a restaurant in London’s Africa Centre from self-taught chef Khadim Mane, who has recreated the flavours of his youth in Dakar. It is also a venue with a social purpose, offering a free six-week training scheme for aspiring chefs aged 18-30.
The menu is built around mildly refined versions of Senegalese classics – and delivers flavours with real “oomph”. “If you want terms of reference, think comfort, warmth and earthiness from roasted and toasted, if unfamiliar, spices, all underpinned by the richness of ground peanut.”
The full effect of the menu and the atmosphere of the room is cumulative, said Jay, and it “adds up to one thing: a place you want to be.”
*****
The Times & Sunday Times
Giles Coren snuck in ahead of this week’s opening for a couple of complimentary meals at a restaurant he believes will “define the summer of 2026”. It’s in the “humdinger” of a new hotel opened on a prime Embankment site by Soho House founder Nick Jones – a “mate”, Giles admitted, and a man with “nothing to prove”.
Jones has hired chef Danny Bohan, a veteran of 20 years at the River Cafe, who has come up with a menu that is “a little bit French, a little bit Italian, a little bit British”.
The highlights for Giles were the starters – sea bass carpaccio, croque monsieur, Dorset crab with marinated Vesuvio tomatoes, and gruyere soufflé – and a pudding, a lemon meringue “as good as any I’ve ever had, the meringue hot and sticky on top, puffy as a cloud inside”.
***
Chitra Ramaswamy ventured to an imposing Victorian hotel in a foodie Perthshire village where Darren Ross (formerly of Inver and Mingary Castle) has been hired as head chef.
Her Sunday lunch felt “discordant”, the chef’s ambition limited by the demand to turn out crowd-pleasing classics in a busy hotel. Chitra also wanted to see more late spring abundance from the walled garden on her plate: “I follow the head gardener’s Instagram account; I know that four-acre resource is bursting with life.”
The creative high point of her meal was a green cake made with olive oil and lovage. “It tastes, overwhelmingly and fabulously, of celery. To counter the chlorophyll intensity, there’s a mellow sweet custard and tart green rhubarb. A sorbet made of anise hyssop is bold, aromatic, like nothing I’ve eaten before.”
***
Camilla Long was impressed by a new curry house apparently eared “transplanted from the poshest folds of Borough Market” to a seaside town which has the “whiff of end-of-life care”.
Some of the menu was familiar from its mother restaurant up in London, Heritage Dulwich, but it was the unusual dishes which stood out, such as tandoori venison served on roast avocado with spicy cream cheese and a neon sauce. “Does it work? Yes – it’s inventive and interesting.”
“After a while you begin to wonder, if a small restaurant in Worthing can bang out food like this, at prices like this, what’s everyone else’s excuse?”
*****
London Standard
Josh Barrie welcomed a “fabulous taverna” from “endearing” Nick Molyviatis (of Singburi fame) that brings Greek “passion, élan and whimsy” to serious London.
Among its many hit dishes, prawn saganaki is “a dangerous concoction of medium-sized chaps resting on a bed of spiced tomato, yoghurt and tahini; it’s balanced, moreish and the prawns are cooked to a rapturous level”.
Chicken and pork souvlaki are “masterfully done”, glistening with fat and not even a little dry – and at £13.50 and £15.50 per tray with a portion of fries they make “a bloody good lunch in a pocket of London mostly devoid of them”.
*****
Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles was deeply unimpressed by the bland food served at the grand-looking main restaurant from Des Gunewardena’s D3 Collective, in Olympia’s newly restored Pillar Hall – despite the “utterly charming” service.
The first dud dish was a crab salad that was “plain dull, the crustacean obviously not picked fresh that morning, the mango unripe, the whole dish fridge-cold and woefully under-seasoned.” Herdwick lamb rump also tasted “curiously dull”, while a Sri Lankan chicken curry was merely “OK in a Qatar Business Class sort of way, but at £28, expensive and utterly forgettable.”
Perhaps Idalia is a work in progress but Tom, who lives just three minutes away, won’t be back to find out: “You’d have to pay me to return.”
*****
Daily Telegraph
William Sitwell found “glory and wonder” – and “the greatest chips in north-west London” – at an outfit that doubles as a bakery by day and a restaurant by night.
What really impressed him were the main dishes – one each of mussels, pork collar and pollock – served with “impeccable veg”. All were of “the type that convey a worship of ingredients by a chef obsessed with flavour and texture, like an Elizabeth-David-esque interpretation of rural France for the appreciative British palate.
“It’s the sort of food you want to eat on a summer’s day in the countryside when the doors are open but it’s pouring with rain and you’re eating and glugging wine with your favourite people on the planet.”