Richard's Reviews

Wiktionary defines local as: “one's nearest or regularly frequented public house or restaurant”. (It used to say bar, but such is the joy of all things Wiki, I changed it. No doubt it will have been changed back by now, but I will have made my point anyway). Hardy's is my nearest, although not most regularly frequented, restaurant; thank heavens too that the Barley Mow has been thoughtfully and carefully restored, and has reopend as a boozer. This lovely gem of a pub was closed for way too long, but I now have a local “public house” within falling distance too.

Hardy's is not, nor has ever had any pretentions of being, a hip or cool place to hang out. It is never going to win a Squaremeal star, let alone a Michelin one, but that misses the point. This is a local. A restaurant that you can walk to in a few minutes, that you know what you're going to get and you know that it is going to be cooked well. No surprises; no foams, no drizzles, no smears, but the sort of place where you go if you fancy fishcakes (traditional, not Thai), beef (roast, not pan seared with an aromatic jus) and lamb (rump, not rare breed).

The wine list is surprisingly long, arranged carefully by style rather than grape, and with some crackingly good value wines at the lower price range, with a few more expensive ones for a special treat. The descriptions are great too: each wine has its own two line write-up, generally talking about the grape, the aroma, the character but, in one memorable description: a Vogue covergirl, not a Playboy centrefold. I have no idea what that means, but surely worth a try.

I view Restaurants reservations like job interviews: you book a slot, turn up and expect to be fed or interviewed. I have a simple rule too; 15 minutes grace period then out. So we turn up at Barrica at the alotted hour, to be told that we'll have to wait, as the big table that had booked had more people turn up than they had thought. Now I'm sorry, but how is that my problem?

To be fair, it was something of a miracle that there was a reservation at all; I am all for Spanish restaurants employing Spanish bar staff. After all, it certainly adds to the authenticity. They should at least have some English, otherwise making a reservation is something of a challange. So three calls later, I have (I think) confirmed a table. So it seemed.

Anyway, we waited at the bar, with a beautiful La Bota Manzanilla (and a dry torta on a cocktail stick). So far, so average. Just as the clock turn 15 minutes and we were about to leave for Salt Yard next door, a table appeared.

Things immediately looked up with a lovely plate of Pan Tomaca and some Jamon Bellota. Nicely crisp bread, dripping with tomato; paper thin cuts of sweet, fatty ham. The perfect starter to any meal. The trouble is, other than a gorgeously peppery olive oil (that came with the bread basket) and the wines, it was all a bit downhill from there. Snails weren't at all, they were winkles. This of itself is fine, but I am still no closer to identifying the mojo sauce. The croquetas were ok, but dry rather than runny inside and the smoked mushrooms certainly above average.

A few years back, Fino took tapas restaurants above and away from the cheap and cheerful, La Rueda style, raising the bar for what we think of tapas to be. The likes of Salt Yard, Barrafina, Iberica Tapas, Brindisa Tapas and Dehesa have all kept that bar high. For all its attempts to reach those heights, Barrica falls short. It is a fun place, the food is fine, the drinks very fine, but somehow it doesn't quite get there.

Barrica is very good value for… More

In the rarefied atmosphere of michelin starred restaurants, it is the little things that make the difference between two and three stars. Marcus Wareing has garnered two stars and is clearly on the lookout for a third. The food is excellent, the service attentive without going overboard and the atmosphere the sort of subdued buzz that grand hotel dining rooms were built for. Well, actually, on the latter part the main room is like this; there is also a small anteroom with five tables. I am sure that on most nights this is fine, but when we went, there was a table of five (although is seemed like fifty) braying ingrates, doing their best collective impression of a walrus coloney. Only with more swearing. We asked to be moved to the main room, a service that was executed with the minimum of fuss and no drama, and the atmosphere there was the sort of buzz etc. and so forth.

But still, with all the individual elements in place, somehow it is missing that spark that makes a very good restaurant a truly amazing one.

At the weekends there are three set menus, with the second and third building on the standard “menu du jour”. In France, a menu du jour is of the €12 three courses and a carafe of wine type. Here it is the £80 entry level. No wines (unless you pay another £60 for the sommelier's matching selections). We decided to go with the wine list. List doesn't do justice to this tome, a homage to French wine, with smatterings of Italian and the odd Spainish inteloper. It is, as you would suspect, good at the higher price wines, including the 1961 Petrus at a mere £30k. Fortunatley, there are some lower priced wines, although quite how a Nyetimber is £85 here, when you can get the same wine in Canteen at £39 does seem strange. I understand that the hotel has a huge carrying cost as it has to have a wide selection, but how and why prices differ so markedly is always beyond me. Instead, we settled on a lovely Pommard. Not cheap, but as keenly priced as anything the half an hour… More

The Hart brothers seem intent on conquering the Spainish restaurant market in London, and barrafina is a fine example of a simple concept (a tapas bar) executed with style and panash.

Like a sushi bar (or Joel's eponymous L'Atelier), the L – shaped bar grants an excellent view of the chef's at work. The fish sits proudly on display centre stage and the plancha is fired up and ready for action. The action is all fairly low key, less Hell's Kitchen b******ing, more gentle ribbing, amongst the young staff. I do, however, love the fact that, although the chef is directly in front of you, you have just seen him (and they do all seem to be him's) prepare your food, it is then sitting there on his side of the counter, he has to call a waiter to pass it the twelve inches to you! Come on, muck in; it really isn't beneath you to pass the food, especially as the chefs are all happy to chat away with the customers as they go about their business.

Of the myriad dishes on offer, the razor clams stand out, as does the suckling pig and the blood sausage with quail eggs. The tortilla's are perfectly cooked right in front of you and the Jamon Iberica sliced paper thin.

As you'd expect from a tapas bar (although generally don't get in this country), there is a good range of sherry's (try the Pastrana), as well as a short, but keenly priced wine list, of which all are available by the glass. Albarino is one of those trendy grapes at the moment, and the Paxo de Senorans on sale last time is very good, but they also have some interesting Godello and some white blends from wine producing corners of Spain you might not have come across before.

On the niggle side, prices are very upper-end Soho (not individually but, like any place where you order lots of little dishes, they soon do add up), and the no-booking policy can be a pain, but overall, and excellent little place in the heart of Soho.

By far the best way to enjoy this restaurant is to sit at the counter and watch the theatre of the kitchen unfold. No sreaming Ramsay fits, but a group of people who genuinely seem to be enjoying themselves, and who are more than happy to take time out to chat with you about what they are doing.

The red and black, dimly lit decor isn't to everyone's taste, and the elevator music should have been left in the lift, but the staff are friendly, the service attentive and the food is supremely good. The tapas size plates are the most fun, with the ability for the kitchen to show what it can do. From simply sliced Iberica ham and basil infused pan con tomate, to foie gras stuffed quail every dish hits the spot, the highlight being pigs trotter on toast with parmesan. This has all the right ingredients: pork; check, cheese; check, bread; check, and the assembly is a small mouthfull or two of pure heaven.

Okay, so there is clearly a downside to the otherwise unending stream of superlatives; the price. Yes, the aforementioned pigs trotter is terrific, but at £12.00 (before 12.5% service) for a pre-starter size, is on the rich side (the tapas range from £9.00 through to a heafty £19.00!). This, however, is relatively sane when compared to the £100 for a main course of spaghetti with white truffle. A TON. For pasta. Here's my advice; get a Sleazyjet flight to Venice, go to Harry's Bar, have the same dish (with much more truffle), a bellini, get back on the plane and keep the change.

So get somebody else to pay, or splurge, but probably not the place to go for if your peckish and have a few quid to spend.

Settle in to the gorgeous banquettes, order some pan con tomate, a plate of Jamon De Jabugo and a glass of Manzanilla, and peruse the enormous tapas menu (being careful not to set fire to it on the table candle, as I managed to do whilst entertaining clients once). Fino is rightly regarded is one of the finest restaurants in London, quite an achievement in itself, made even more so by the fact that its secluded basement setting is never going to catch any passing trade.

Yes, it can get expensive with all those tempting little plates, and yes the menu doesn't change on a particularly regular basis, but the food is never short of superb and the atmosphere just that right low level buzz that allows conversation without having to raise your voice, yet let's you know that you are in what might have been called a happening place in my grand-parent's time.

First the good point: the food is really very good. Ok, you might think that this is the most important thing in a restaurant and, whilst it is clearly the raison d'être of a restaurant, you go out and spend money for the whole experience. At Trishna, the real problem lies in the decor: bare wooden floors and exposed brickwork may be oh so trendy and look achingly cool, but they also lead to sound bouncing around to such a degree that it is difficult to hold a conversation (the first time we went, we were sat next to a table of twelve: conversation was impossible).

If you go, and it is worth a try, go in summer, so that you can sit outside (or bring earplugs and a pen and paper, so that you can at least write to your companion, even if you can't hear them).

The great thing about having no choice is that you get all sorts of things that you would otherwise not know to order; the food was excellent, the service much better than some seem to have experienced and the bill, whilst not cheap, not exactly what you'd call outrageous. Arriving for a late sitting, however, we were surrounded by a somewhat garrulous crowd; the raucous crowd on one side had the good grace to apologise, but the drunken kiwi slumped over our table on the other didn't seem to notice!