Tree Trouble. Miss at Wildflowers. Hit at Saint Jacques. Critics & More.
Rayner finds a great place to eat near Albert Hall. Grace backs Ukrainian. Lynes finds Spanish love.
Happy Easter, everyone. I hope you’re enjoying your 4-day weekend. Things have been a bit hectic at work the last couple of weeks, and I have been short on lunches. My friend Karim added a dash of jealousy to my culinary dissatisfaction by sharing loads of pictures from his meals at Moor Hall. Nevertheless, I’m working through a back catalogue from January and February, so I’ve still got some ink to spill. Keep scrolling for my “Miss” at fashionable Wildflowers in Belgravia and a “Hit” at Saint Jacques in St. James.
I’d also like to welcome new subscribers who are regular readers of The Cook’s Edit and to thank very much for her recommendation. My round-up of the critics’ reviews is always the last item in my Monday update. So keep scrolling for that, too.
But this week, we start with a very old tree.
Knives Out After Restaurant Cuts Down 500-year-old Oak
I’ve never been in a Toby Carvery. From a distance it’s basically my idea of what British food was like in the 1970s and 80s. There seem to be a lot of Toby Carvery locations, and I can’t quite work out why. Feel free to set me right in the comments.
A couple of weeks ago, the manager at one those locations — near Enfield in north London — was advised by an expert that a tree over-hanging the car park was dead and very likely to fall on someone’s head.
Workers with chainsaws were summoned, and the tree was cut down.
Only, the tree wasn’t dead. It was a 500-year-old oak, and a famous one, sitting on the wedge of Whitewebbs Forrest.
This has uncorked a vast — and fairly justified — volume of outage. The CEO of the parent company has apologised “for all the upset it has caused.” The area is now being treated as a crime scene. I hope the company’s expert will be summoned to answer for their error before the strongest and straightest arboreal examining board in the land. Where are the Ents when we need them?
When Emperor Claudius arrived here in 43 AD, Britain was a largely forested place. But most of the ancient oaks were consumed for shipbuilding, and by the time of Napoleonic Wars, the government had to rely on trees from Scandinavia, especially Sweden, to outfit the Royal Navy. Indeed, the Royal Navy’s consumption was so substantial that the Swedes planted 300,000 oak trees on an island in lake Vättern in 1830, which are just about ready for use in shipbuilding.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with lunch. But the fact that this act of vandalism was perpetrated by a restaurant gives me just enough license to offer this thought:
It takes a lot of care and patience to grow something over hundreds of years. It takes only a moment to cut it down. And sometimes, when it seems like something isn’t working, it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to.
Miss: Wildflowers
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.
Few places have been more positively reviewed than Wildflowers over the past few months. Giles Coren ate there with Jamie Oliver. Grace Dent adored it. William Sitwell did too. And Hot Dinners. And LOTI. And Palate. And Michelin.
I didn’t.
The problem started in the bar. Wildflowers is in Newsons Yard in Pimlico, which was a working building long before the neighbourhood went up-market. A local told me that he remembered it as a Travis Perkins.
So the restaurant faces onto the internal courtyard rather than the street. On the first floor there’s a well appointed cocktail bar that overlooks the yard. But the yard is open air, and so is the bar. From the various reviews, we made a point of turning up early so that we could enjoy a cocktail, not quite realising that we would be sitting, climatically, outside. Service was slow, low-slung chairs were uncomfortable, and it was properly freezing.
I cannot fathom why the restaurant, which clearly spent a bundle on design and outfitting, failed to install some sort of retractable doors or windows. Either they were constrained by a planning restriction or intentionally decided to leave it open air. I can imagine the meeting: “It will be like a loggia in Venice.” Except it’s London, with about three warm days per year. Miss.
When we moved downstairs to warmer climes in the dining room, we also found much warmer service. In particular, the sommelier was outstanding. But there were weird elements here, too.
The restaurant is clearly chasing a Michelin star. I get it, and I wish them much luck in their effort. But the dining room is built around a fully open kitchen, and the chef had his brigade sounding off with the traditional, “Oui, Chef,” in response to every called order. That’s distracting and, these days, quite weird, in my experience. Moreover, that sort of formality doesn’t really work in a vibe that’s billed as “neighbourhood.”
There’s also a second album problem. I didn’t spot a single dish from any of the early reviews on our menu. And the dishes we tried did not compare either conceptually or executionally with what I saw in those reviews.
Prawn carpaccio was overwhelmed by almonds and spice. Buratta was over sweet with apricots and lacked sufficient salty ham to balance. A trout dish was a bunch of elements that didn’t go to together. Vegetable garnishes were dramatically too sweet. Rabbit and cuttlefish paella was a highlight, but “allioli” was far too sweet. (And to be clear, I have a sweet tooth. It’s hard to serve me something that I find too sweet.) The polenta cake dessert was probably the best dish, but the outer bit of the cake was burned and the whole thing was overcooked. I was surprised that the pastry chef served it.
One of the reasons that I don’t write many negative reviews is that I do a lot of reading and research in order to avoid bad experiences. Given the cascade of positivity around Wildflowers, I was eager to try it. So I hate being an outlier, but based on my experience, it’s not a place that I can recommend.
Hit: Saint Jacques
It’s easy to love a restaurant when there’s a whole lot of wine involved. So my visit to Saint Jacques in St. James doesn’t quite earn a full review just yet. But having enjoyed my recent dinner there so much, I can’t work out why I’ve never visited before.
My excuse was a dinner centred on the wines of Nicolas Jay, a wonderful Oregon producer of Burgundian-style Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It’s the project of former rock-star agent Jay Boberg and Burgundy wine maker Jean-Nicolas Méo.
Jay was hilarious, regaling us with tales of the Bangles and REM, but also sharing the story of Nicolas Jay and contextualising his extraordinary wines. My favourites were their 2015 estate Pinot Noir, a 2022 single-vineyard Nysa Pinot Noir, and their 2022 Affinités Chardonnay.
Saint Jacques was the perfect foil for these stunners, offering classic takes on French dishes to match with the wines. Whites were served alongside a delicious pan fried scallop. A middle course of snails and wild mushrooms was rich and pleasant, but probably didn’t need the fried gnocchis. And the fine reds paired amazing well with Bourguignon style braised beef cheeks. A fantastic Paris-Brest completed the evening with aplomb.
A huge thank you to my friends at Lay & Wheeler for including me in the dinner, and introducing me to Saint Jacques, which I will surely revisit for the full experience as soon as I have an excuse.
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.
🍽️ ✍🏻 Grace Dent (Guardian) is the first to Tatar Bunar, a new Ukrainian place in Shoreditch. “What Tatar Bunar certainly does not feel like, however, is ‘a humble little restaurant run by proud people from a war-blighted country to keep their hope alive, etc’, or any other such patronising nonsense. This is a confident, expertly staged, rather sexy dining spot with flattering, soft peachy lighting, Bessarabian wagyu on the grill and Black Sea yafe nagar by the glass.” … “Tatar Bunar is indulgent, delicious and a breath of fresh air. And it’s already most definitely a highlight of 2025.”
“Christina” (LOTI) also visits Tatar Bunar and says it, “offers a great introduction to Ukrainian food, and though the dishes have been elevated, they still feel authentic.”
She also visits buzzy Nina in Marylebone. “Nina does an elevated take on recognisable and beloved Italian dishes, and there’s nothing here that’s trying to be too clever or too challenging, just tasty.”
✍🏻 Jay Rayner (FT) reviews Da Mario, an “old-school Italian” in Kensington. “Da Mario is the answer to another restaurant question, one that has long troubled many people: where the hell can we go to eat before attending a show at the Royal Albert Hall?” Look, forgive me, but this is genuinely big news, and I’m excited about it.
🍽️ David Ellis (Standard) explores Tom Brown’s new place at the Capital hotel in Knightsbridge. “Showing off? Sure. The thing with Brown is, showing off suits him, he’s good at it. His creativity is commercially attuned: ideas he pioneered, like crumpets topped with seafood, are now on menus across the country.” … “Am I picking? Without a doubt — but only because I believe in Brown. He can go further, do better. There is a five-star restaurant here: I’m coming back, I’m going to find it. This was a three. I’ve cut it down the middle.”
Giles Coren (Times) adores the Angel Inn in Highgate, which only does roasts and breakfast. “We may never bother to go home again.”
- (Smashed) raves about Rayuela, a Spanish spot in Ealing. “Simple, humble dishes they may be, but because they are so well done, they are a proper culinary treat.”
Andy Hayler (independent critic) heads to much-lauded Ambassador’s Clubhouse off Regent Street. “Overall, the food was pretty good, though the value for money factor is rather debatable here, at least for me, but clearly not for the crowds descending on the place.”
🍽️
(Braise) can’t get enough of Toklas Bakery near the Adlwych. “I’ve been to Toklas Bakery a handful of times over the last year, and each time it conspires to impress me more.”Simran Hans (Vittles) reviews the new branch of Soho institution Bar Italia, and considers the future of Soho’s Italian classics. “Up until now, Bar Italia has been one of the few Italian institutions in Soho which has managed to resist selling out or closing up.”
Catherine Hanly (Hot Dinners) is the latest to try Tasca at Câv. “We were blown away by Tasca. From the cocktails and wine to the amazing food and service this is an absolute belter of an opening for Bethnal Green and East London.”
Salty Plums tries Mamapen in Soho, a rare Cambodian specialist. “This is all meant to be food full of cheerful, easy pleasures. It definitely hits that spot if you pick the right dishes.”
Peter Sullivan (
) makes his first appearance in the wrap-up this week, with a review of Mallow in Canary Wharf. “The overwrought plates of food are eminently instagrammable but manifestly inedible.”Designer Bella Freud reviews Dove, the Jackson Boxer place in Kensington, for the Observer’s guest slot this week. “The food at Dove is amazing. The décor is simple and elegant; light floods in from the windows at the front, and further in there is a roof light that makes for soft, flattering, European-style ambience.”
William Sitwell (Telegraph) didn’t publish a review this week.
Beyond London
🍽️ Nick Lander (jancisrobinson.com) enjoys Updown, which is doing interesting Italian near Deal. “The excellent meal, preceded by the house apricot margarita outside in the sunshine and followed by a quiet mooch around the extensive gardens and the extremely comfortable hotel lobby – all of this combined to make me want to return for a longer stay.”
Tom Parker Bowles (Mail on Sunday) tries Walcott House in Bath. “This is a lunch of heartily refined cooking, confidently straightforward, with service to match.”
Charlotte Ivers (Sunday Times) heads to Bristol to try Wilsons. “‘Delightful’, in fact, is the word that keeps coming to mind. The room is delightful. The staff are delightful. They clearly care so much about what they are doing here.”
Thanks for reading this week’s update. I hope you have a great week. Please do subscribe if you haven’t already, and let me know your thoughts in the Comments.
I thought it was fantastic. Wonderful service too. Wine list not my favourite. I would do more research on it before going back. Too much 'funky' stuff to navigate around.
Thanks once again for the mention. Such a shame you had a poor experience at Wildflowers. I too thought the no window thing in the bar was a very odd decision. It's strange they've changed so much of the menu. I went to Morchella on Saturday and enjoyed the 'greatest hits' I'd read about in reviews and was very glad they were avilable to try. A really good dish isn't that easy to create and it just makes sense for most kitchens to keep what works and build the menu around those cornerstones, especially newly opened places.