What the critics say: Goodman, Daylesford Organic…

17th March 2009, 11:38am

A round-up of the latest reviews

Daylesford Organic, Westbourne Grove, London
AA Gill, The Sunday Times, 15 March

There is a restaurant and, downstairs, another restaurant. Upstairs, it's a cramped little cafe. We sat in the window, watching Notting Hill pass by, like straggling refugees from Kosovo. I started with onion soup, which was straightforwardly disgusting. Tepid onion water, with a sodden Kleenex crouton. The Blonde had cod rillettes in a mason jar. Cod is not an improvement on pork or duck. It smelt stoutly of fatty, shredded incontinence pads, and came with two thin slices of bread that were so hard, Captain Bligh wouldn't have served them. 'You don't like the toast?' the waiter asked. This isn't toast. This isn't even a dog biscuit. The venison carpaccio presumably came from the same dear deer that lost its head to the gardening equipment. The meat was covered in some concoction that made it taste like a medieval poultice for boils. English vegetables were roots that you could tell were English because they were flaccid and politely tasteless."

"The real star, though, was something that on the menu was called a 'mixed grill', but on the bill a 'butcher's plate'. A sausage, a couple of lumps of lamb, a bit of cow, with an onion mush that would have been better employed in the soup. The meat was underhung, but it was the sausage that was really special."

Goodman, Maddox Street, London
Erica Wagner, The Times, 14 March

"The beef was brought to our table, a huge platter of it, glistening and raw. You get to look your steak in the eye before you eat it here; if you don't know the difference between fillet and rib-eye, you will after you go to Goodman. And it was at this moment that my hopes for the place began to rise. True, true, there were two USDA Prime American steaks (meat certified by the US Department of Agriculture), a strip steak and a rib-eye; but our waitress gave us a clear indication – without seeming disloyal, you understand – that these would not be the appropriate choices for connoisseurs such as we."

"And the steak? It did not disappoint. At £36 for the two of us, I'd have to say that it was mighty good value, too, served in fat, bloody slices on a wooden board with the bone for me to chew. The menu tells you that the meat is cooked in a special charcoal oven; and indeed the blackened crust of the meat had a darkly carbonised edge, a beautiful contrast with the sweet, delicate, hardly warm heart of the meat."

Lola Rojo, Wandsworth Bridge Road, London
Terry Durack, The Independent, 15 March

"Lola Rojo is as cute as a button, with explosions of bright red (signified by the rojo bit, pronounced, like Rioja, with an "h"), like flashes of a bullfighter's cape on staff aprons, vibrant paintings and stools on the outdoor terrace. Even the lively manager, Isabel Ortega, has hair as flame-red as the star of Tom Tykwer's 1998 film Run Lola Run – but that, of course, is a red herring."

"This Lola is a just-born sister to the original Lola in Battersea, now two years old, but don't get excited. I doubt the owners, chef Antonio Belles and Cristina Garcia, have plans to rise up and take on the successful La Tasca chai."

J Sheekey Oyster Bar, St Martin's Court, London
John Walsh, The Independent, 14 March

"The least expensive are Strangford Lough Rocks which, with a glass of Roederer champagne, will set you back a mere £15 for 6, and very delicious the combination was: the oysters creamy and slithery, served with ceremony, crushed ice, and the usual spicy botanicals, and extremely filling. Hurrying past the Beluga/Sevruga selection (£250 and £125 for 50g) you find that the menu is eccentrically, though pleasingly, studded with cheap-ish starters and snacks in no particular order: goujons, crab bisque, gravlax, steamed mussels, even jellied eels are on offer alongside the posh lobster dishes."

"My Cornish fish stew was a treat, seething with flavour, freighted with lumps of halibut, mussels on the shell, whole king prawns and sliced potato for extra ballast. My date's Atlantic prawn curry, served on a copper skillet, tasted fine – the prawn never overwhelmed by the cumin – but was boringly tepid. We sent it back and a replacement arrived after a long pause. It was an annoyance that brought the first wrinkle of anxiety to my brow. How could such a hot restaurant offer a lukewarm fish curry? This was Sheekey's, for heaven's sake."

Kettners, Tottenham Court Road, London
Mark Bolland, ES Magazine, 13 March

"My fig, Fourme d'Ambert and walnut salad was fresh and zingy: succulent figs nestling in crunchy curves of chicory, along with some serious blue cheese and a well-judged dressing. My guest had the leek and potato soup, which arrived in a teeny, steaming bowl. He looked non-plussed, saying he preferred the cold version, but then agreed that perhaps the freezing weather outside wasn't really vichyssoisefriendly. My sea bass fillet was everything you'd want it to be and the accompanying green vegetables came in a rather corny heart-shaped dish (I loved it!). The historian's choice of the Kettner's fish cake was very good, he said, though it had not got nearly enough sauce.

"Too full for pudding, we succumbed to a dish of homemade biscuits with our coffee, and these were unbelievably good. So good, in fact, that we took the uneaten ones home in silver paper, cleverly fashioned by a waiter to resemble a swan. The restaurant also has a pudding bar and a marble table groaning (if marble tables can do such a thing; a long low moan I guess) with sticky cakes. We saw two women eating creamy confectioneries, accompanied by delicate cups of mint tea."

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