3 Strikes for Threes. Another Soho Loss. Key Chef Departures. Critics & More.
Rayner schools Jul's. Preston stalks Impala. Hayler adores the Dysart.
Hello, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. It’s a busy update this week with major chef changes at two top places and an incredibly disappointing closure in Soho.
But before we get to those, I need to share something: I’m worried. I learned last week that a U.S. studio is making a biopic about chef and author Anthony Bourdain. There’s even a new trailer. The reasons for concern should be self apparent. Who can possibly do justice to Bourdain?
The film comes out in the U.S. in a couple of weeks and in the UK on 14 August, but I’m not the only one worried. GQ has picked up enough notes of concern that its profile about the movie is headlined, “Don’t Worry, the Anthony Bourdain Biopic Is Good.” The writer, who has seen the film, promises that Bourdain fans like me won’t hate it or find it too cringe. I am not yet persuaded. Anyone planning to see it? Anyone else worried? Tell me in the Comments.
Inspired Attack on Rule of Three
Meg Houghton-Gilmour takes on a bit of conventional wisdom as old as Artistotle and Pythagoras, putting the Rule of Three to the sword. Specifically, the oddity of share-everything restaurants presenting dishes with three items per serving.
Lord knows a prawn is not the easiest thing to cut with the head off, let alone on, and you can’t manhandle it lest you be deemed rude for having touched the food. Either way there ends up with someone cheesed off, someone being too polite, someone having got the best bit and several pieces still left on the plate.
This has long mystified me as well. If we’re going to have to endure the tyranny of small plates, restaurant-imposed sharing, and “we’ll bring it when we’re ready,” why do kitchens insist on portion sizes that make zero sense? If there are four of us, bring four bites. If there are two diners, serve two pieces. If you want to be clever, charge by the piece. As Meg says:
Pricing by item allows for way more flexibility, and in lieu of that, two, four, or multiples thereof are nice, divisible numbers. And it means that the conversation around the table can continue, without the rude interruption of maths and tweezering. Three may be a magic number elsewhere, but it’s not welcome on my table.
The Rule of Three is a rhetorical technique that traces to Ancient Greece. In writing and speech, it adds to cadence and helps hold reader (or listener) attention. It has been adopted into professional kitchens seemingly by accident and become an aesthetic choice. The Culinary Arts Academy in Switzerland puts it this way:
The rule of three is a widely used principle in design, photography, writing, and public speaking, where groups of three elements create a sense of balance and visual appeal. The same idea applies to plating, keeping presentations visually balanced and not overwhelming. According to this rule, placing components in odd numbers—typically three—is better than doing so in even numbers, as it can look too rigid or symmetrical.
Well, I like symmetry. But I like avoiding arguments or unspoken hard feelings with my lunch guests even more. The rule of three can end. In sharing places, it should. Listen to Meg. She’s right.
End of the Line for 10 Greek Street
Soho stalwart 10 Greek Street announced last week that it will close on 8 August. It’s among the best places in Soho, with its daily changing menu and stunning wine list. I’ve had dozens of professional lunches there, and never left disappointed. Its demise is another blow to Soho’s nightlife scene, which I have been talking about the last few weeks.
Founders Cameron Emirali and Luke Wilson told Broadsheet, “We’re excited about what comes next, but first we’d love to see lots of you over the next few weeks and give the restaurant the send-off it deserves.”
Two Top Chefs Step Down
Quality Chop House has been one of London’s go-to destinations for more than a decade. Dorian burst onto the scene 18 months ago and quickly established itself as a buzzy first-choice place with superb food.
Now both have lost their chefs.
Shaun Searley announced last week that he will be leaving Quality Chop House after 13 years, in a story first reported by Restaurant. He’s handing the reins over to head chef Nathan Chapman and plans to launch his own place.
Meanwhile, Max Coen said in an Instagram post that he is stepping down from his Executive role at Dorian to go travelling. No word (that I can find) on who will replace him.
Chef changes bring big challenges for restaurants. At Quality Chop House, there’s s strong successor ready to take over. At Dorian, Coen’s departure could be disruptive. We’ll see.
Critics Wrap-Up
✍🏻 indicates a review that you should read for the writing.
🍽️ indicates a place that sounds excellent and is probably worth a try.
Jay Rayner (FT) is mystified by Jul’s, the “London outpost of a restaurant that began life in Ibiza.” … “Every dish we have is a tweezered, overthought calamity: too sweet, too salty, too aromatic, too in thrall to the tongue-deadening demands of umami, and no amount of edible blooms or grinding beats will disguise the fact.”
🍽️ Danielle Newbold (Table for Two) is among the first to visit Igni, a new tasting menu spot in Mayfair from Chef Theo Clench. “Will Igni win a star?
On the first five dishes, absolutely. But the mains make me hesitate. It’s possible we caught an off night. Consistency, though, is one of Michelin’s stated criteria, and on this night, the mains did not deliver.”
✍🏻 Dominic Preston (Braise) heads to the much-hyped Impala in Mayfair. “Could any restaurant ever live up to that promise? Impala, I’m afraid, could not — though I see glimpses of the extraordinary restaurant that almost every other critic ate at.” … “I’m sorry to report that it hasn’t reshaped north African cuisine or invented an entirely new type of restaurant.”
Giles Coren (Times) despises Buvette, the new Covent Garden branch of a U.S.-based French-themed chain. “This lazy grift might have worked in 1989 if they’d found a site that didn’t already have a Dôme or a Rouge or a Flo on it, but in 2026 it’s an insult. A big Yankee fart in London’s face.”
Mediocrity and disappointment come in many forms at Buvette in Covent Garden. 🍽️ Josh Barrie (Standard) heads to MA/NA, a new Japanese place in Mayfair. “Ma/na is a restaurant of multitudes. Here is an abundantly Mayfair locale, where music — maybe two steps away from Italo Disco, perhaps more Provençal club, though Nice, not Cannes — pumps out loudly as people order champagne without wondering about prices.”
Camilla Long (Sunday Times) reviews RH London, the in-house restaurant in an American furniture store. “Is it in fact a showroom itself, playing at being a restaurant — wall-to-wall fakery — and we’ve been had?”
Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) visits Café Clement, the new restaurant in the new hotel from the founder of Soho House. “I rarely order chicken at restaurants, but the spatchcocked version here is magnificent: all crisp skin and joyously succulent flesh, topped with tissue-paper-thin slices of speck.”
🍽️ Andy Hayler (andyhayler.com) revisits The Dysart in Richmond. I was supposed to join Andy for this lunch, but ultimately couldn't make it, and I’m really disappointed to have missed out. “The Dysart is one of my favourite restaurants, and you can see from the descriptions of how the dishes are made that a tremendous amount of technical skill goes into the food here. It seems surreal to me that this has just one Michelin star.”
Bruce Dessau (Eats Dulwich) sticks to his home turf to try Chi Chinese. “I’d have to say Chi Chinese was on the hit and miss side. That’s one of the problems with the mixed bag that takeaways often are. There’s something random about them. One dish might hit the spot, the next might miss it by a mile.”
Ali Alibhai (The Sauce) reviews Carbonne in Mayfair, the London branch of an American chain. “This place is uber glamorous, bang in the heart of Mayfair, spends a fortune on both staff and stuff and treats you like a much loved regular, from the minute you sit down to the moment you stagger out. You’ll end up leaving feeling like a million dollars whilst only a few hundred poorer. And that’s a deal I’d take any day.”
Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) test drives Johnny Boy’s, a new “LA diner” in Stoke Newington. “With next-level diner food, good portions and pretty decent prices all in a great-looking space, this will do very well in Stokey.”
The Observer did not publish a restaurant review this week, or if they did, I can’t find it online.
Beyond London
Grace Dent (Guardian) heads to Birmingham to check out Vieni, a Sicilian spot. “Vieni dances a fine line where British-Italian restaurants often fail. It’s not the Spaghetti House or a red-sauce mum-and-pop restaurant; it sits closer in spirit to Moro.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) tries Lardon, a restaurant in Elkstone Studios in Gloucestershire. “You can cook, you’ve great ingredients, locals will love you. Just calm the hell down with the service, and when it comes to cheese and sauce, restrain yourselves.”
Ed Gilbert (Gourmet Gorro) find a Nashville hot chicken joint in Cathays (which is in Wales, I think). “At its best and when consumed immediately, they serve generous portions of cracking value, top notch Nashville hot chicken. However, after ten minutes sat in a takeaway container, it’s a much more mediocre experience.”
Chitra Ramaswamy (Times) checks out the Fin & Grape, a seafood spot in Edinburgh. “A restaurant to cherish, now more than ever, and return to time and time again.”
Sam Wilson (Bald Flavours) checks out Taverna O Spanos in Athens. “It’s easy to see why the old tavernas, like British pubs, are such deep wells of nostalgia from which many are deriving the next epoch of modern dining.”
Liam Collens (Eponymous Substack) reviews Row on 45 in Dubai, the sister of Row on 5 here in London, which I loved. Liam returns after an earlier disappointing experience, and finds, “ROW on 45 has refined, through the steady, unglamorous graft of moving one hundred things one inch forward.”
The Roaming Restaurateur visits I Cavallini in New York. “Eating here is to sit in your own culinary pleasure bubble. I Cavillini is the distilled essence of everything I hope for in a great restaurant. Innovative, creative food that delights and surprises, thoughtful service delivered with flair and warmth.”
Salty Plums visits Fin Boys in Cambridge. “The flavours got really serious with the lobster rice. A perfectly gooey risotto-like concoction flecked with plentiful bits of toothsome lobster meat, but where the lobster really shone was in the roasted sauce and oil that bound the rice together. Absolute monster of a seafood risotto.”
Thanks so much for reading this week’s update. I hope you found something interesting. Let me know what you think in the Comments.
Glad you’re in agreement Marshall!
I saw the Bourdain trailer a few weeks back and expressed similar reservations. I want to see it but I am also so worried. Antony’s legacy and aura is so steeped in what people imbued in him, what people saw in him and what they took from him, so presenting a single version of him, of one point in time, risks alienating what we’ve romanticised individually and collectively. Bourdain was personal for many and I wonder if there’s not enough water under the bridge yet. Is there enough time for nostalgia to firmly take root and for each of our personal affections to subside?