Great UK&I Restaurant Reviews

[fergal]

I saw a review here of breakfast at the Maze Grill.

Very funny and just had to share:

http://www.londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/

(NB. very colourful language)

any other great scathing reviews to share?

regards

fergal

[Alan Smeaton]

I recall Jonathan Meades reviewing McDonald's a few years ago, one of the great pieces of restaurant writing. Giles Coren's review of Goodfellas in Belfast was pretty entertaining:

"There is what appears to be a hen party in the next room comprising 12 women seated around a large square table, each of whom, on her own, weighs as much as a whole hen night of women from Fulham. (I guess these are battery hens).

The men have big square heads and little pink faces, short spiky hair, stud earrings and big appetites. It’s like Westlife got old and fat overnight, which they sort of have if you saw them on Al Murray the other night."

[Harters]

The London Review of Breakfasts is usually a great read. Not my part of the world but I check it out every few weeks. It has some absolute gems.

[Holly Moore]

“Two eggs, streaky bacon, Old Spot sausages, mushrooms, beans, black pudding, and a tomato.”

A tad off topic. Has any London breakfast chef ever dared to break with tradition and prepare beans from scratch as opposed to going to all the trouble of opening a No. 10 can? (Are there No. 10 cans (tins?) in London?)

While I have come to accept the role of sugary Heinz beans within the flavor interplay of a full English breakfast, I do pause for a moment, before first raising knife and fork in an American manner, to wonder what could have been, bean-wise, had Heinz eschewed global marketing.

[naebody]

Has any London breakfast chef ever dared to break with tradition and prepare beans from scratch as opposed to going to all the trouble of opening a No. 10 can?

←

Loads of places have. The assorted Rivingtons and Canteens for a start.

I recall Jonathan Meades reviewing McDonald's a few years ago, one of the great pieces of restaurant writing.

←

Just dragged it out of the archive, and it's not really about McDonalds at all. Like the majority of Meades' reviews, it barely mentions the food and focuses on how he's disgusted by the suburban proles.

Did McDonald's establish their first British branch (in Woolwich) because they understood that the quality of life in such places is straitened, that they are infected by a banal desperation, that expectations are low? Did they realise, too, that they were establishing the first in a nationwide chain of de facto drop-in centres?

As for good reviews, AA's column this week was glorious, not least because for the first time in about three years there was enough happening on the plate to hold his interest for more than a par.

Was also taken by a recent throwaway aside from Marina, who offered this concise skewering of Prezzo:

No amount of preserved fruits in fancy bottles can compensate for a spreadsheet of a menu which delivers a selection of cynical faux Italianerie, all of which tastes like wallpaper paste.

Edited July 31, 2008 by naebody (log)

[Winot]

Anyone remember Will Self's review of Red Pepper when they were so unwelcoming he left without eating? I often wonder how long the restaurant lasted after that. It can be found in Feeding Frenzy.