Marina O'Loughlin on restaurants
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The Frog, London E1: ‘I can’t shake the feeling that this is a rather silly restaurant’The beetroot starter has got technique, panache, creativity. Well, it has until the pal whispers, ‘They look like tampons’
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Table 11, Glasgow: ‘I don’t mind a bowl of homemade crisps as pre-dessert’The specials board is where the real stars hang out. We have a couple of fat, tender octopus legs, charred into sticky smokiness
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Rochelle Canteen, London E2: ‘It wears its fabulousness lightly’ – restaurant review‘How on earth have I never been? This is nourishing for body and soul, and huge fun’
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Chez Bruce, London SW17: ‘A meal that encourages you to wallow in sheer, sybaritic pleasure’‘Every detail is attended to: of course the temperature is balmy; of course the tome of a winelist is bound in softest leather; of course the acoustics are perfectly judged’
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Norn, Leith, Edinburgh: ‘It makes me want to gasp OMG OMG, like a teen scoring a selfie with Harry Styles’No matter what fish, fowl or foraged fungus turned up on the day, it would issue from Norn’s kitchen transformed into something ravishing
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Restaurant Ours, London: ‘not my idea of fun’ – restaurant reviewThe menu comes across like girlie dude food: insubstantial and Instagrammable
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Takahashi, London: ‘We get nigiri of absolute luxury’ – restaurant reviewThe pal, who’s had more hot dinners than even I’ve had hot dinners, says, ‘This might be the nicest thing I’ve ever eaten’
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Bulrush, Bristol: ‘It’s the kind of thing I’d happily eat by the fistful’ – restaurant reviewEating this is like waking from a dream of taste and texture: sweet, salty, sour; suave, crystalline, crisp. Blissful
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A Casa Mia, Herne Bay: ‘I pine for more’ – restaurant reviewI’m satisfied and happy, not bloated with the cheap carbs and self-loathing that lesser pizzas trail in their wake
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The Hotel Portmeirion: ‘It’s the living definition of trying too hard’ – restaurant reviewThis isn’t food to revel in, it’s food designed for a breathy, titillated voiceover on mainstream television
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Dapur, London WC1: ‘It looks, and smells, like the real thing’Our lunch for two costs 15 quid. Given the freshness of the ingredients, and the vibrancy of the pastes and spices, this is quite the bargain
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Cafe Monico, London W1: ‘A celebration of safe’ – restaurant reviewThe food is fine, but you’ll hunt high and low for a frisson
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Padella, London SE1: ‘I hoover up wriggly worms of pici pasta like a deranged cuckoo’‘If they do embark on an expansion plan, anyone lucky enough to welcome a Padella to their neighbourhood should put out the bunting’
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El Gato Negro, Manchester: ‘I’m finding it hard to forgive the ham. It’s sacrilege’ – restaurant reviewIt’s a gorgeous place to hang out. Should you mistakenly imagine yourself in Madrid, there’s a mosaic of Frank Sidebottom and John Cooper Clarke to keep it real
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Pitt Cue, London EC2: ‘One mouthful of their sausages, and all I hear are choirs of angels’ – restaurant reviewThis isn’t a barbecue joint, it’s a restaurant that barbecues: and a thunderingly good one
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Marram Grass Cafe review: from caff to place of culinary pilgrimageWould I be so forgiving in a designer joint in Mayfair? Of course not. But I also know where I’d rather be
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Pharmacy 2: ‘The food isn’t really the point at this Damien Hirst revival’ – restaurant reviewIt looks like an over-decorated gallery caff, every nuance of loucheness syringed out of the place. You can almost smell the Hirst artworks increasing in value
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Tasty, Glasgow G5: ‘The beef is so overcooked, you mourn the cow that died in its name’ – restaurant reviewA ‘Korean burrito’ is obese and clammy, with all the visual allure of a used nappy clogged with indeterminate vegetable matter; thanks to some mushy haddock, it has the fragrance of one, too
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Le Cochon Aveugle, York: ‘Everything makes us grin like eejits’ – restaurant review‘As the beautiful meal plays out, it all starts to make a Through The Looking Glass kind of sense’
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Frenchie, London WC2: ‘This is no insouciant little bistrot’ – restaurant reviewThe food is mostly excellent and occasionally sensational. But always tiny
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Galvin Hop, London E1: ‘Sausage rolls and pork scratchings and scotch eggs, the platonic ideal of each’I could get used to having a hot dog as an amuse-bouche if it weren’t for fear of my arse taking over Britain
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Upstairs at Trinity, London SW4: ‘No one seems to have sent the casual memo to the staff’ – restaurant reviewI’m guessing communal tables are the very definition of casual, but they give me the gibbering fear
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Rick Stein, Sandbanks: ‘I’m not buying it’ – restaurant reviewIt’s all too corporate and slick, overproduced and soulless, safe and anodyne: an M&S cashmere of a restaurant
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Guy’s, Glasgow: ‘It’s one of those rare places that defies conventional wisdom’ – restaurant reviewThe menu may be anchored in Caledonia, but it doesn’t so much wander around the globe as stagger drunkenly across it
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Ellory, London E8: ‘Everything about it indicates a restaurant très serieux’ – reviewThere comes a point where purity teeters towards Puritanism
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Macellaio RC, London EC1: ‘Meat dangles on hooks like a scene in Saw’ – restaurant reviewThey love a bit of theatre: viciously sharp knives are stabbed into tables with a thud; meat is butchered loudly to order
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Lake Road Kitchen, Ambleside, Cumbria: ‘It’s all a gal could hope for’ – restaurant reviewA meal without a single missed beat is as unusual as a non-menopausal Paul Hollywood fan
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Arthur’s, London E8: ‘The beef stew stops me in my tracks. It tastes like the past’ – restaurant reviewTrue, the coffee isn’t the greatest, but then you’re not supposed to order coffee, but tea the colour of a Geordie lothario
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Pachamama, London W1: ‘Unlikely to trouble the Deliciously Ella brigade’ – restaurant reviewThe chicharrónes may well be the poster meat for unhealthy living, but they’re heavenly
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Escocesa, London N16: ‘Some fine Scottish seafood, in a Spanish restaurant, in Stokey. Works for me’ – restaurant reviewThis isn’t where to come for reinvention of any Spanish wheels: it’s a fleecy comfort blanket of familiar dishes
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Sexy Fish, London W1: ‘The food? It’s entirely forgettable’We’re intimidated even before getting to our table, perhaps because I’m wearing H&M and my own face
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Benedicts, Norwich: ‘I love a chef who gets jiggy with the animal fats’ – restaurant review | Marina O’Loughlin‘It was local wisdom, not the chef’s success on Great British Menu, that led me here, and I’m glad it did: it’s a little treasure’
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Bellita and Aron’s Jewish Delicatessen, Bristol: 'This city seems to exist on culinary ley lines' – restaurant review‘You can’t fling an organic parsnip in Bristol these days without hitting a fine little independent restaurant’
Bao Fitzrovia, London: ‘Perhaps the queue is part of the experience? Search me, guv’