Reviews: John Burton Race's New Angel ‘as if past 20 years never happened'

The ***Guardian's ***Marina O'Loughlin finds that John Burton Race's New Angel in London is a restaurant for people for whom the recent democratisation of eating out is a cause for trembling fear.

"I am in a time machine cleverly disguised as a posh, west London restaurant. It's as if the past 20 years never happened, but this Tardis adventure is no thrill of a lifetime.

"Burton-Race, looking ever more like the result of some terrible transference experiment between Leo Sayer and The Fly, squats at a corner table, glowering. For the duration of our meal, he doesn't appear to go near the kitchen. Is it a good restaurant? Umm… I'm happy never to darken its doors again."

The Evening Standard's Grace Dent visits Fera at Claridge's and ends up eating everything, including her own words

"This is ornate, laboriously concocted food, but importantly it is still food. Actual dinner that one wants to eat. The following four courses whizzed past without a bum note. I am not the world's biggest steak tartare disciple, but Rogan's raw beef on smoked broccoli cream with a hint of apple made me a convert. Prawns arrived on pickled Alexander, asparagus and shellfish-flavoured butter, then came a small but meaningful serving of Middle White pork on a shallot and yellow bean purée. If anything was a favourite, it was the monkfish on sea purslane and black saison."

After a visit to an Apple store to get his phone fixed, The Times' Giles Coren drops in on Blanchette, London W1 for lunch and finds a sexy environment of excellent music, hip, young staff and a good value menu.

"Blanchette is the Apple Store Genius Bar with food: a place where young people, full of zeal, are making the world a better place and smiling as they go. And we old gits, quite frankly, are lucky to be allowed in."

Time Out's Guy Dimond visits Corbin and King's Fischer's in Marylebone High Street and says it's only the most foolish of restaurateurs who would open an old-fashioned Austrian restaurant in the centre of London. Or, the most confident.

Jay Rayner of the Observer doesn't find the early signs at the Parkers Arms in Lancashire particularly promising, but when the food arrives he realises he has nothing to fear.

"I got it entirely wrong with another Cotswold pub a week or so back. A well-written menu, full of gutsy things that spoke of hedgerow and earth and appetite, resulted in a meal of those shrugs and sighs. Not bad, but not worth writing about. Which made the prospect of the Parkers Arms â€" high on a hill above Clitheroe and the Ribble Valley in Lancashire's Forest of Bowland â€" worrisome. It had been recommended to me repeatedly, though looking at the menu online I couldn't see why. And then the food starts to arrive and it's clear everything is going to be fine. No, everything is going to be very good indeed."Â

Lisa Markwell discovers Thai street food heaven at the Begging Bowl in Peckham, London. Writing in the Independent she says that nothing feels more like summer than hot and sour soups, crunchy peanut encrusted salads and rich coconut curries.

Chef owner Jane Alty, who has worked with Thai Food don David Thompson, creates a green curry that is elevated "stratospherically from the norm [by] the beautifully cooked chicken", while the pork shin, slow-braised in cassia bark, dark soy, star anise, with pickled mustard greens and a duck egg is "earthy and stringy and pungent, all good things in a dish such as this".Â

Writing in the Telegraph, Zoe Williams is wowed by the ingredients on offer at the Rivea restaurant in the Bulgari Hotel. Enjoying a host of sharing dishes, she is left with an “impression of clarity and cleanness” by the octopus and potatoes, while pasta with asparagus was “like a green elf coming up to you with a bugle and announcing the summer”.

The Sunday Times AA Gill finds himself lunching at Cafe Bleu in Lincolnshire and declares, "if a rural market town like Newark can’t sustain one decent restaurant using local ingredients and the wealth of authentic recipes then it makes you despair of provincial food in England".

HOTELS

Coworth Park, the Dorchester Collection’s only country outpost, provides a glamorous and family-friendly setting for Jo Fernandez of the Evening Standard and her off-spring.

“Dinner was easy, as we were right next to the Barn: a two-storey original frame with vast view-giving windows, populated by rich children in Ralph Lauren polo shirts, collars upturned, and efficient staff who bring olives, bread and butter quickly and without prompting,” she said. “It’s homey and rustic, with stone floors and stripped oak tables providing a country kitchen feel.”
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The Guardian’s Kevin Rushby finds that the King’s Head, Kettlewell, North Yorkshire, newly refurbished by Jenny and Michael Pighills, makes a perfect stop-over for a party of cyclists touring the Yorkshire Dales.
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“The six rooms, lightly themed by monarchs, are modern, uncluttered and spacious â€" perfect for men with lots of stuff,” he says. “There are good beds and a DVD player, but it's the homemade biscuits that get tested immediately, and found to be delicious.”

Located on top of a hill facing the rolling countryside of the Rother Valley, Aston Hall in Aston, near Sheffield, makes a great value convenient stop-off, between Edinburgh and London, says Tom Chesshyre of The Times.

However, some of the rooms “looked in need of a spruce up” and the food is somewhat dated with its nouvelle cuisine slant.
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Fiona Duncan, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, says the George in Rye offers imaginative bedrooms and a retro Grill restaurant, close to Romney Marsh and Camber Sands.

But, she says, “if it wasn’t for the quality and individuality of these bedrooms, The George would be a far less interesting place to stay”.

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