My Return to High Road Social: Still Shambolic? Plus Critics & More.
Ellis builds Ikeda. Hayler underwhelmed at Harrods. Rayner keeps Kosher.
Hello, everyone. Last week was one of those incredibly busy, pressure-filled weeks which are both fun and difficult in equal measure. Thank goodness for the sunny days. And on Friday, I managed to break away for lunch, returning to High Road Social in Greenwich for the first time since I called it an “unmitigated shambolic failure.” More on that below.
Many thanks to everyone who has completed the reader survey. If you haven’t, there’s still time, and if you do, I’ll put you in a draw to join me for lunch at Cabotte in the City.
And here’s a little follow-up. In my weekly reviews, I include a quick-view capsule right at the top. (Recent example here.) It’s meant to provide all of the practicalities you need to investigate further and book. For various reasons, I’m thinking about moving it to the bottom of each review. What do you think?
Also, if there’s any other information that you would find useful to include in the capsule, could you tell me in the Comments?
Thanks again for helping me optimise things around here. I will report back on the data from the survey — which is really interesting — in a couple of weeks. For now, on with the show.
Leroy Team Returns with Duchy
I don’t generally do new restaurant announcements, but I feel a particular attachment to this one: Leroy was the very first restaurant that I reviewed for this site, but it sadly closed in November.
Happily, Chef Simon Shand and restauranteur Alex Grant, who were both part of the Leroy story, are planning to launch a new place, called Duchy, in the same Shoreditch location.
According to Restaurant Magazine:
The Phipp Street restaurant is loosely inspired by the Duchy of Savoy, which occupied a huge area of south-east France and north-west Italy for over 800 years up until 1867.
Shand will offer his own takes on the historical region’s dishes with a launch menu that includes pork shoulder and smoked eel croquettes; brown crab arancini; roasted pork neck with bagna cauda and courgette; and fresh spaghetti with bottarga and olive oil.
It looks like it will open in May. I will try to get there early on.
The End of Walk-In Dining?
Getting a table at a popular restaurant can be maddeningly difficult. I’m eager to try Bouchon Raccine, for example, but snagging a booking is nigh on impossible. Tables at the Devonshire go in milliseconds.
For the restaurants, this is a blessing. Bookings provide economic certainty — the ability to plan culinary and staffing resources correctly.
But, for diners, the result is that eating out requires a lot more planning.
As Ajesh Patalay said recently in the FT, “Forget about turning up without a booking. You’ve got more chance of winning the lottery than landing a table anywhere decent as a walk-in.”
It turns out, that’s frequently wrong. Patalay reports how virtually all restaurants will make an effort to fit you in. For example, lots of friends have told me that the best way to crack Bouchon Raccine is to call on the day.
At the perma-booked Devonshire, they do 700 walk-ins per week.
Now, don’t expect to rock-up at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday and snag a table. But at other times and other days? The walk-in isn’t dead. Just out of practice.
Miss: My Return to High Road Social
Hits & Misses are mini-reviews of places that were either (a) good, but not quite good enough to do a full review and add to the Guide, (b) had a flaw or two, or (c) that I revisited following a prior review.
Back in December, I wrote about the “unmitigated, shambolic failure” I had experienced at High Road Social in Greenwich. In that piece, which remains one of my most-read, I mentioned my promise to the owner to give it another try.
So on Friday, I enlisted my brave friend Michael to join me lunch.
At this point, it would be far more entertaining to write another screed, taking the experience apart bit by bit. But I can’t honestly do that. Nor can I write that it has turned itself around. It’s still, at best, a mixed bag.
Since my first visit, the menu is dramatically simplified. There’s now a lunch menu, recently refreshed for summer with sandwich, salad, and “plate” options that included lots of vegetarian things plus fish and chips and a burger. There were no starters on the menu, which was odd, so we ordered some kale chips and fried, stuffed olives to munch on. The olives were so good that we asked for a second portion. More on that in a moment.
For mains, we both went for burgers, which were fine. Accompanying chips and vegetable sides were likewise fine. Everything was well spiced and seasoned, and the food was certainly at a better standard than last time.
But with the benefit of the second visit, I can now make a specific, constructive suggestion that will improve High Road Social: Owner David should sack himself from table-waiting duties. When I arrived, he remembered me from my previous visit, welcomed me, and apologised again for the December experience. Which was nice.
However, throughout our lunch, our only disappointments were from requests made to him. A request for a drinks refill was forgotten, and our second order of olives never made it to the table, although we were charged for it.
On the other hand, the waitress who mostly looked after us was fantastic, friendly, funny, prompt, and efficient.
All in all, I’m glad to have returned to High Road Social. As I said in December, I’m rooting for its success. This experience was unquestionably better than my last, though it’s hard to imagine how it could have been worse.
But I’m sorry to say that High Road Social remains a “Miss.” And if there are any restauranteurs reading this, Greenwich sadly still lacks a defining, destination place which, in my view, it sorely needs and could certainly support.
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.
🍽️ David Ellis (Standard) visits Japanese gem and celeb haunt Ikeda in Mayfair, which he calls, “the Wiltons of Japanese restaurants. Old school and hush-hush.”
✍🏻 Giles Coren (Times) reviews both the Prince Arthur in Notting Hill and the Lavery in South Kensington. “Two very different restaurants, then. Light and dark. Dark and light. I couldn’t separate them.”
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) also tries the Lavery. “Our one gripe was perhaps a lack of personality.”
🍽️ Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) follows Charlotte Ivers to Dorian, the celeb-magnet in Notting Hill. “It’s not cheap by any stretch, but this is precise, grown-up cooking, with a total mastery of both technique and flavour. The whole place pulses with pure, unfettered delight and service is as warm as it is slick.”
Miquita Oliver is the guest “celeb” reviewer for the Observer this week, also checking out Dorian. I guess having a “celeb” review a celeb-magnet is interesting to someone. There’s also some stuff about gentrification. I can’t work out if it’s meant to be ironic or not. The piece was also substantially edited on Sunday after publication. Can we now acknowledge what I said last week: That this celeb guest reviewer thing really isn’t working?
Jay Rayner (FT) reviews Tony Page Marylebone, “the only fancy kosher restaurant in central London,” where “high prices and occasionally clumsy cookery are far less important than utility.”
Lilly Subbotin (Independent) uses Hilton’s 100th birthday as an excuse to review the Park Corner Brasserie at its Park Lane hotel. “For mains, it’s fish and chips and a duck leg. The former is excellent: crisp, airy batter; piping-hot, salty chips; and a tangy tartare that cuts through everything beautifully. It’s a Hilton-ified version of the classic – neat and grease-free.”
Andy Hayler (independent critic) tries The Georgian at Harrods which, “didn’t seem especially good value for me. The food was pleasant but the service let things down.”
✍🏻
(Braise) checks out Quality Wines in Farringdon, which I reviewed a while back. “I’ve eaten at Quality Wines four times, and every time departed with half a grumble on my lips about the bill.”
Partridge from my visit to Quality Wines. 🍽️ Gavin Hanly (Hot Dinners) test drives the overhauled menu at Bodeans in Soho. “You'll find great barbecue backed up by excellent sauces, which is pretty well priced and very generous as far as the portions go.”
Jules Pearson (LOTI) enjoys Tasca at Câv in Bethnal Green. “Having first opened at the start of March, only serving cocktails and drinks, Câv has now welcomed its first kitchen residency, Tasca, from sommelier Sinead Murdoch and her partner Josh Dallaway, who is in charge of the food.”
Jo Aspin (Chatting Food) heads to Milk Beach in Soho. “You can feel the Aussie vibes as soon as you enter the open plan, curved in shape restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows allowing for all the light to come in when London plays ball.”
🍽️ Amanda David (Chatting Food) loves Noodles & Beer in Soho. “Capturing the heat of Sichuan via its interior, food and drink, it’s safe to say this is a hot new addition to London’s thriving noodles and late-night dining scene.”
🍽️ Anna Selby (The Arbuturian) tries Kioku by Endo at the Old War Office in Whitehall. “The main Wagyu course came with pomme purée and Tokyo turnip. Served with a glass of Hakurakusei Junmai Daiginjo, this was a revelation.”
Salty Plums reviews Toklas in Aldwych. “Toklas is solidly good, classy, and worth knowing about… but it’s not going to become a regular for me.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) didn’t publish a review last week.
Beyond London
Grace Dent (Guardian) checks into Harry’s in Camber Sands, East Sussex. “It is not fussy or stiff, although it is decidedly glamorous, and a bit like a 1950s beach shack given a Soho Farmhouse makeover.”
🍽️ Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) travels to North Yorkshire. “Pignut has one of those menus where everything has its providence listed. Spoiler: the providence is always Yorkshire.” … “It doesn’t have a star yet. It probably will. Get in ahead of the tyre people while it’s still affordable.”
Marina O’Loughlin (FT via Instagram) is still in Sicily. Her FT column digs into Reddit, and how it has become her vital source of local intel for her travels.
Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) was in Maastricht. “I found far more to enjoy: charming small streets; a great deal of history; more opticians’ shops than I ever thought possible in a single city, and two distinctive and highly memorable restaurants.”
Thanks for reading this week’s update. Please let me know what you think in the Comments, and subscribe if you haven’t already.
I thought Miquita Oliver had been hung out to dry by her editor. She's not a professional writer and she obviously needs guidance and more time than the Observer are apparently willing to give her. It was a hard read.
Solid work as always. Just in the Quick Hit capsule, I had something similar on my website for a few years and then I removed it all together. After a few weeks, I found the bounce rates went down significantly and I never re-introduced it. There could be many reasons for that, but it is the reason I never brought it back. Instead I started writing a summary sentence up top to capture the mood. Personally, I like the Quick Hit so I would encourage you to keep it and add it up too vs wrapping up the article at the end. Also, Substack is quite different to websites as I think one’s subscribers are in it for the haul instead of the casual passersby on websites lured in by Google SEO. Sorry for the Tedtalk! Just sharing. Hope it helps.