What the critics say: Bingham, The Royal Oak…

8th February 2010, 10:49am

A round-up of the latest reviews

Galvin La Chapelle, London
Giles Coren, The Times, 6 February

"Galvin La Chapelle (named after the great Hermitage wine) comprises two separate but conjoined entities: a vast-ceilinged Victorian hall (really, I've been in smaller cathedrals), beautifully converted, pillared, gleaming, bright-windowed, operatic, for the sit-down lunch for 100 people, sorry, for serious eating at lunch and dinner; and then, in a sympathetically constructed modern echo next door, a café for the champagne reception and cake-cutting, sorry, sorry, I mean for lower-key eating and drinking and breakfasts and stuff. 

"I've eaten supper in the posh room (it really is cinematically fancy, almost dauntingly so if you're of a timid disposition) and had great crab lasagne, terrines and soups, a cleverly deconstructed pigeon tagine and the côte de boeuf for two with truffle macaroni and a Hermitage jus. But also a quick £24.50 set lunch, with a starter of red mullet escabeche, then a gleaming bit of sea bass with turned vegetables and afterwards, I think, a chocolate tart, or maybe cheese."

The Royal Oak, Kent
Jasper Gerard, The Telegraph, 5 February

"The specials menu is nicely judged, with a handful of dishes, all tempting, all trumpeting local sources. We devour exquisite bread with caraway seeds, courtesy of nearby Bodiam's Lighthouse Bakery. We rip through Rye scallops with all the plump juiciness of Jennifer Lopez. These are served simply with chilli, garlic, soy sauce and lemon, though the attentive young waiter tells us the chef can wrap them in pancetta with black pudding. My pheasant terrine is the first disappointment. It's full of crunchy peppercorns but so chilly (frozen?) I abandon it. 

"Main courses are as redolent of the land, but better. Diana is tempted by lamb's liver and bacon with bubble and squeak, but can't resist the pheasant. The risk with this bird is dryness, but four breasts arrive in a thick, rich forestière sauce of caramelised red onions, wild mushrooms, lardons and red wine. The dish is delightfully tender and still just pink. The warming, winter vegetables such as divine dauphinoise potatoes taste home-cooked in the best sense of the term. Particularly soothing is red cabbage braised with nutmeg, ginger, allspice, apple and white wine vinegar."

Supperclub, London
Zoe Williams, The Telegraph, 5 February

The first course arrived, a piece of sea bass with a carrot escabeche on one side, a fennel salad on the other. The fennel was more chewy than crunchy; I think maybe it was prepared half an hour before it should have been, so the chef could get on with his face-painting, or whatever. The carrot was very nice. C's piece of fish, he said, was the best he'd had in ages, though you need to set that against the fact that he doesn't order it often. Mine was a bit tough. We swapped, to check that he wasn't just being daft, and his was much fresher, very silky, preternaturally white. Delicious. You win some, you lose some, I could only conclude. 

"The pudding was the worst thing I've ever eaten in a professional establishment. A dense, mealy Genoa cake tasted not just unappealing but factually wrong. Nothing else, not a thin custard nor a heavily cardamommed pear sorbet, made up for it. I wonder if it should have been filed under 'art'."

21212, Edinburgh
Tracey MacLeod, The Independent, 6 February

"Our meal began with some extraordinary curry-scented bread, packed with fruit, nuts and seeds. Apart from the fact that it was bright yellow, it was the nearest thing to normal food we were going to see for the next hour or so. 

"An unusual menu structure, based football-style on the 2-1-2-1-2 formation, doesn't apply at lunchtimes, when diners can opt for the conventional 1-1-1 formula. The food, though, is far from conventional. I was pretty sure I'd ordered a chicken salad but what arrived was a beautiful and colourful mystery tour of a plateful, in which morsels of chicken breast, served disconcertingly pink, played but a walk-on part. Under a dried vanilla pod and a vivid green foamed sauce, I found what might have been Jerusalem artichoke marinated in turmeric, some kind of coleslaw-like treatment of celeriac, and other unidentifiable items. When I came to a plain slice of tomato, I almost sobbed with relief."

The Artichoke, Bucks
Lisa Markwell, The Independent, 7 February

"The tiny room is a deft mix of olde worlde and crisp newness – Clare Nelson (who also did the award-friendly Ledbury) revamped it after the fire and was smart enough to keep the timbers in place, but team them with subtle glass panelling, angular upholstered chairs and white-painted exposed brickwork. The effect is of right place, right time."

"On to the food. An amuse-bouche – a shot glass of fresh pineapple juice with a coconut foam that should be too sickly but isn't – inspires the child in the party to ask for (and get) seconds. Then she tucks into the set menu. From a choice of three dishes at each course, she has creamed spinach and Parmesan soup with pumpkin gnocchi, followed by roast fillet of cod, clams, mussels, crisp garlic, basil, pancetta, red peppers, olives and chickpeas. Heady stuff for a 10-year-old, but she eats every scrap before I have time to stick a spoon in. The soup is earthy and the fish dish fresh and of itself, but mingling beautifully."

The Bingham, London
Fay Maschler, Evening Standard, 4 February 

"With its browny-beige carpet, chairs, wall coverings and tabletops, sitting in the dining room felt like being inside a mushroom, albeit a mushroom lit with chandeliers. Curtains that were just a gesture — not enough material to pull across — were lowering but we were there for the newly ennobled food. The bar is an altogether jollier room but remorseless rain meant we had arrived late for our dinner booking."

"There is something about cauliflower, its echoey flavour, the way it resembles the brain and the split-second window of opportunity between nubbly and soggy it offers the cook that I find deeply alluring. Had the cooking prowess applied to cauliflower risotto, where the tiny florets were gently laminated by lobster jelly with a waft of tarragon been sustained throughout, there would be more Maschler stars at the head of this column." 

Click here to submit a comment!

Have your say!

To comment on this article, simply enter your name and email and send us your views. Please note that your comment will appear publicly below this article once it has been processed. For enquiries please email info@eatoutmagazine.co.uk.