Michelin Guide Additions. New Case for Lunch. Three Star Goes Vegan. Critics & Lots More.
Ellis goes to Nashville. Sitwell despises Kokin. Lander angry at Veeraswamy. Wilson changes tires in Porto.
Well, here we are in August. Hello, everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the summer. It’s gotten cooler and greyer in London, and England still can’t take any wickets. I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon, and it’s hard going for the England attack which is missing Chris Woakes. Days to go, though. We’ll see.
It’s a very busy week, so let’s get straight to it.
The New Yorker Makes the ‘Case for Lunch’
Lunch is starting to thrive again. There has been so much conversation about the re-emergence of lunch that it has been hard to capture it all. But The New Yorker makes a vital contribution this month with a long reflection from writer Lauren Collins (aka
).It’s wonderfully written, and you should read the whole thing, but there are two bits that really stand out for me.
First, she’s had quite an experience at the Yellow Bittern.
Along with sustenance, the money I spent at the Yellow Bittern had bought me time. Time away from the computer and the phone, time outside the family sphere, time to catch up with an old friend—pleasures that, like all luxuries, are difficult to source and can be even more difficult to defend, depending on one’s tolerance for self-indulgence and inequality.
And this leads her to a reflection that I wholeheartedly embrace.
The middle meal, in fact and in spirit, is a bridge, a connector. “Because it offers such rich opportunities for the performance of culture, lunch is a meal in perpetual transition, so that any account of what is commonly eaten in one place or time is likely to change within a generation,” [food historian Megan Elias writes in ‘Lunch: A History.’] Psychologists and educators tell us that a distinguishing feature of our era is loneliness. According to a 2023 advisory by the Surgeon General, America is in the throes of an “epidemic of loneliness,” with roughly half of adults reporting feelings of isolation, which can increase the risk of premature death as much as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Young people, alienated by the pandemic and social media, are turning to religion as a source of connection. God is great, but sometimes fellowship—a certain kind of existing in social space—can be as simple as a tuna sandwich. Plus, you get a pickle.
No pickles in the UK, generally, but it’s hard to imagine a stronger case for spending time together over food in the middle of the day.
Have you got a lunch planned for this week? It’s not too late. And if you can’t find anyone, I’m currently free on Friday.
Michelin Additions for July
We’re about halfway through Michelin’s year. (The UK guide came out in February.) So there are a considerable number of additions for July. That includes seven new places in London and nine more elsewhere in the UK.
The new London listings include The Lavery in South Kensington, Dove in Notting Hill, Claro and FOWL in St. James’s, La Palombe in Kensington, the Prince Arthur in Belgravia, and Supawan in King’s Cross.
Beyond London, emba in Leeds led the new selections.
Best Places to Eat with Kids
This is way outside of my brief, but I’m reasonably sure that many people who enjoy professional lunch might also have children, so this guide from
seemed worth sharing.
Arpege Goes Vegan & Eater Does Paris
As part of my Weekend in Paris recommendations, I included three Michelin-starred Arpege, from brilliant Chef Alain Passard, and told how it had moved towards vegetable-focused cooking a few years ago. Over the years, it has been truly one of my favourite restaurants. Now, it has gone all the way, announcing a couple of weeks ago that it is fully vegan. The Times has a more detailed take.
“My mission is to revive seasonal cooking,” Passard said to the Times. “It’s wrong to have tomatoes in January. They’re a summer food that cools you down. In winter you need leeks to warm you up. Out-of season vegetables grown in greenhouses are tasteless.”
We’ll see how Michelin feels about that in a few months. Colour me skeptical.
In separate Paris news, Eater has updated its list of 38 Best Restaurants in the City of Light. Needless to say, they are far more up on the hottest and hippest places to dine, so theirs is an indispensable resource for trip planning.
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.
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) is the latest to try Singburi 2.0 in Shoreditch. “There have been plenty of column inches and social posts obsessing on whether this is as good as the OG, the same, or an inferior second album. We'd prefer to focus on whether it's a good restaurant or not and whether you should go. The answer to both of those questions is a resounding yes.”
On the other hand, Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) contributes yet another mixed review. “We’re refused prik nam pla (fish sauce, lime juice and chillies) that comes as standard in any Thai restaurant on earth. The chef simply refuses to send any out. Singburi, then, is still a work in progress, but there’s brilliance behind the burners.”
🍽️ David Ellis (Standard) heads to Lil’ Nashville in Chiswick for line dancing and American barbecue. “Lil’ Nashville bills itself as a country bar and kitchen, but is better considered a kind of theme park ride.”
Giles Coren (Times) heads to Canal in Paddington. “The cooking is excellent: a roster of gleaming, colourful, well considered, produce-foregrounding platefuls, rather than familiar starters and mains that you feel might easily be made into a traditional ‘meal’.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) despises Kokin, the new place in the Stratford Hotel from Daisuke Shimoyama, formerly of Hannah. “Omakase, where the chef selects your food for you, is one of the great treats in life.” (This is ironic given Sitwell’s dislike of tasting menus.) “Then came a cut of tuna, the bit a chef might usually chuck, or use for stock, we’re told; the word ‘sustainable’ was duly brandished. It was cooked at a low temperature over fire. Oh my, was this frightful. It stank like the bottom of a boat unsweetened by diesel, tasted as bad, and its hue was worse.”
Andy Hayler (independent critic) checks out AngloThai, a few months after it received its Michelin star. (I reviewed it in March.) “It seems to me an awful lot of money for what appears on the plate.”
✍🏻 Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) revisits Veeraswamy, which is under threat of closure after nearly a hundred years in business. “I left Veeraswamy disappointed and angry, two sentiments I do not normally associate with visiting a restaurant in central London. The disappointment came not just from the poor quality of the cooking but also from the brazen attempt to rip me off. The profit margins on the bread basket, the papadums and the bottle of mineral water are excessive in my opinion.”
Beef tacos at Homies on Donkeys. - (Leytonstoner) revisits Homies on Donkies, which I checked out a few months ago, as it celebrated its 8th anniversary. “As for the tacos? No-one could fault them, whether it was tender bavette with house salsa, carnitas (‘reverse braised’ confit pork), the signature camaron enchilado (supremely fiery chilli king prawns) or moreish slow-cooked chicken thigh barbacoa.” He’s also got an interview with Sandra, the founder.
- (Cheese & Biscuits) tries Luna, the new wine bar in Shad Thames from the folks behind Lagare. “I can recommend Luna just as enthusiastically to lucky Shad Thames locals as to the wider London population. It's good. And that's really all you need to know.”
Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) test drives Island, a new surf and turf place near King’s Cross. “We may not be fans of the room itself, but the cooking on show here was outstanding. Every dish we had was a knockout.”
Alex Larman (The Arburturian) braves CUT at 45 Park Lane, Wolfgang Puck’s London place. “Everything here in terms of the food and wine is exemplary.”
✍🏻
(Braise) reviews Joyeta Ng at Mu in Dalston. “Sadly nothing in the second half of the meal came close to matching those highs of the first.”Writer Joel Golby takes the “celeb” review slot in the Observer this week, with a visit to Miga in Hackney. “It’s a family-run Korean restaurant on the corner of Mare Street – the cool bit of Hackney – near to hip Broadway Market but without its more clamorous, fuck-I-just-stepped-on-and-killed-someone’s-Italian-greyhound energy.”
Beyond London
Jay Rayner (FT) is in Edinburgh to try Ardfern. “They offer a rigid three-course menu that laughs in the face of informality. Ardfern means it. Go there for the Arbroath smokie Benedict and a glass of wine. Or a doughnut and a coffee. Or a long dinner. Look, if you’re in Edinburgh, it would be a mistake not to go, whatever you choose.”
Grace Dent (Guardian) ventures to Beaconsfield to try the Greyhound. “There’s some clever, cogent cooking going on at the Greyhound, with some hits, some misses, but an overall sense that, in a bid to be the best restaurant for miles around, they might just be missing the chance to be simply delicious.”
Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) also heads to suburbia. In her case, Chingford in Essex to try Instagram hit Gina. “A social media buzz so often offers style over substance. Here, Gina have managed both. But they’ve also achieved something much more important, much less tangible. They’ve built something fun.”
✍🏻
(Bald Flavours) is in Porto to try Restaurante Lameiras. “The Michelin Guide can park it—I’d rather take cues from the guys who know how to change a tyre.”
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Hey Marshall, love your writing. You should try Noize in Whitfield Street. An exceptional French Bistro with a fabulous wine list. I've just had a great meal there with my daughter. https://www.noize-restaurant.co.uk/
Thanks for the mention