What the critics say: Roka, Polpo…

4th January 2010, 11:41am

A round-up of the latest reviews

The Kingham Plough, Oxfordshire
AA Gill, The Sunday Times, 3 January 

"The kitchen is a serious restaurant workplace. The bar menu is as fine as I've ever seen. There is a profusion of local cheeses and ice creams in metropolitan flavours. It's all a lot of work, and it's well worth it, and anyone thinking of opening a local pub restaurant should come here and see the gold standard. And anyone who's about to write to me saying that their local hostelry does a damn good ploughman's without all that fancy wine-list nonsense should eat here before posting it. Mind you, you should see the locals. There were blokes here with hiking boots and gaiters, and three layers of Gore-Tex. You'd think it was Orkney. If you want mud round here, you have to order it from Daylesford. 

"When the kids go to skip in puddles in their Boden wellies, the au pairs offer still or sparkling. It's not real out here. It's not funny. But it probably is quite clever. And you can eat very well."

Roka, Canary Wharf
Giles Coren, The Times, 2 January 

"There is room now only to say that Roka was excellent. They were totally cool about me showing up an hour late for my reservation carrying an open bottle of Dom – and you can't ask for more from service than that. Given the limitations of the site, the place is very pretty, very golden, very modern. And it was full of all sorts of glamorous people, lots of drop-dead wives of Russian billionaires and the editor of the Daily Mirror sitting with a table full of 'Jermain Defoe's people.'

"The Japanory food was very well executed, the fish impeccable, the presentation faultless and the pricing pretty keen. Chu-toro at £7.60 for three pieces, hamachi at £6.90, and hotate (scallop) at £5.90 are all cheaper than usual for this sort of quality. Which was lucky because they did have Cristal. Plenty of it. And we drank it. All of it. And had a high old time."

Polpo, London
Jasper Gerard, The Telegraph, 31 December

"Polpo describes itself as a 'bacaro', or Venetian pub, and intended having customers eating while standing at the bar, but its experienced founder, Russell Norman (late Caprice Holdings and Zuma), realised Britons prefer their meals in the sedentary position. Not that there is anything snoozy about the place: the food might be traditional Venetian, but it is funkily packaged as tapas. 

"Tapas has never been hipper, whether Spanish (Barrafina), French (Terroirs) or Italian (Bocca di Lupo). Comparisons with the latter are inevitable after chef Tom Oldroyd defected here from its Soho neighbour, though Bocca is more experimental and casts its net across all rural Italy. Polpo, by contrast, is pure homage to Venice. Appropriate, really, as this was once home to another who painted vivid pictures of that languorous city beloved of we British: Canaletto."

Vijay, London
Toby Young, The Independent, 3 January 

"From the outside, Vijay doesn't look anything special. It's on the corner of Willesden Lane and Kingsley Road and announces itself with bright-red letters against a blue background. The sign says it was 'established' in 1964 and the exterior looks as if it hasn't been revamped since. 

"Inside, it is plain to a fault, almost like an Indian restaurant in the process of being gutted. Brown walls are occasionally interrupted by posters of Hindu goddesses that have seen better days and the lighting is harsh, illuminating rows of wooden chairs tucked under small, utilitarian tables. Not somewhere you'd want to take your spouse for your 25th wedding anniversary."

"Being a south Indian restaurant, Vijay offers a wide selection of vegetarian dishes, which pleases my non-meat-eating wife. We decide to share a couple of starters – masala dosai and vegetable somosa – and, for our mains, I opt for chicken masala while Caroline has cabbage-carrot thoran, dhal spinach and some chana masala. To accompany this, I order a bottle of 2008 Frascati priced £15."

Dean Street Townhouse, London
John Walsh, The Independent, 2 January

"Since the Townhouse was so determinedly blokey, I ordered their only signature dish, the Townhouse mixed grill. How could they do anything new to this trencherman's feast? But they did, by bringing out the unique flavours of all the constituent parts. The Cumberland sausage was taut and peppery like the handmade sausages in my childhood. The bacon was both crunchy and sweet. The fillet steak was juicily perky. No lamb cutlet in history was as tender as this lamb cutlet (had they marinaded it in lamb stock for hours?). 

"The kidney was cooked à point, and carried a faint whiff of pee, not unpleasantly. The liver was as disgusting as I've always found liver to be, and I gave the lion's share to my companion ("Delicious, John," he said, shaking his head at my folly). And the bubble'n'squeak was a delicious foil, if a touch lumpy. Most mixed grills are served without any liquid agent. Here, a lovely savoury jus kept everything moistened and enriched. How did they do that?"

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