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Our latest bi-weekly round-up of the latest London restaurant reviews from the top UK critics as they are added to our reviews section. This week, Times critics AA Gill and Giles Coren review the exact same meal, more raves for Spuntino and Opera Tavern and Matthew Norman really doesn't like Spice Market...
Richard Vines - Bloomberg
Choice quote: "The attention to detail at Spuntino is just extraordinary, right down to the ice cubes, which -- instead of being perfectly formed -- come in misshapen slices, just like at an American diner."
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Fay Maschler - Evening Standard
Choice quote: "The staff behind the bar with their tattoos and T-shirts look like roadies but interact deftly and cheerfully. Fun is on the menu at Spuntino and that is worth celebrating."
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See all the Spuntino reviews
Keu - overall score 8/10 (new entry)
Chris Pople - Cheese & Biscuits
Choice quote: "This is by some distance the best sandwich I've enjoyed in a long while, nearly a foot long, stuffed with premium expertly cooked ingredients and encased in artisan bread..."
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Laura Richards - View London
Choice quote: "The banh mi makes for a perfect snack and a great change from your average sandwich."
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See all the Keu reviews
Zoe Williams - Telegraph
Choice quote: "There was so much going on in every mouthful, and all the flavours were so individual, so characterful, it was like a hip-hop dance-off. Made of food."
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See all the Opera Tavern reviews
NOPI - overall score 7.5/10 (no change)
Jay Rayner - Observer
Estimated score
Choice quote: "...what he already does at the delis is so perfectly poised, in such damn good taste, that it's tricky to see how it could be elaborated on. If you already love Yotam Ottolenghi's cooking you will not find a better version at Nopi."
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See all the NOPI reviews
Brawn - overall score 7.5/10 (no change)
AA Gill - Sunday Times
Choice quote: "The food was certainly worth a trip, and the kitchen did well to keep up, but it’s best when compiling tapas from cleverly sourced ingredients, less good when it actually has to cook from scratch."
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See all the Brawn reviews
Amaranto - overall score 7.5/10 (down 0.5)
Zoe Strimpel - City AM
Choice quote: "Most, but not absolutely all, of what we ate was the very best, with boisterously fresh ingredients, flavoured with rich, strident sauce and decorated pleasingly."
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See all the Amaranto reviews
AA Gill - Sunday Times
Choice quote: "Everything tastes of outdoors, like the wind off a moor or autumn birches freshly turned out. Moss and peat, rain and fungal stumps. It’s clever and it’s poignant, quietly sad. It’s food that is very Scandinavian."
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Giles Coren - Times
Choice quote: "In the end I was left with mouth memories reminiscent of Noma: raw fish, smoked things, dark flesh, salt, bitter herbs, almost no carbohydrates, very interesting, still hungry."
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See all the North Road reviews
Tracey Macleod - Independent
Choice quote: "Despite the decent quality of most of what we ate... we struggled to warm to the Fox and Grapes. A long wait for our main courses, and the "yeah, it's coming"-style response of our waitress, highlighted the problem with gastropubs in general... the food may be of restaurant quality, but the service is distinctly pubbish."
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See all the Fox and Grapes reviews
Marina O'Loughlin - Metro
Choice quote: "Everything here is thoughtful: from the bread and butter to a pudding of almost-black squelchy chocolate cake crusted with sesame seeds and served with ‘milk jam’ – the gorgeous condensed milk equivalent that is confiture de lait."
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See all the Chabrot Bistrot d'Amis reviews
Matthew Norman - Telegraph
Choice quote: "The unofficial (concept) is to take comparatively cheap ingredients, pepper the menu with the word “emulsion” in a stab at justifying outlandish prices, and get the punters out as quickly as possible."
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See all the Spice Market London reviews
Bennett - overall score 6/10 (new entry)
Guy Dimond - Time Out
Choice quote: "...its main appeal will be as a neighbourhood brasserie for a drink, breakfast or lunch bite, rather than as a destination restaurant"
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See all the Bennett reviews
Fay Maschler - Evening Standard
Choice quote: "The full menus are stuffed with irresistible ideas: Blythburgh breakfast slider, biscuit and provolone; rare roast topside, green sauce and dripping toast; Old Spot shoulder, nduja and fennel."
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See all the Brunswick House Cafe reviews
Marina O'Loughlin - Metro
Choice quote: "His early days menu excesses – all buttock-clenching headings such as ‘skinny minis’ and ‘water, ebb and flow’– have been curtailed (although ‘beast of the week’ remains) in favour of a short, smart doc that ticks so many trend boxes it could have been written by Tyler Brûlé."
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See all the Eighty Six reviews
Zoe Strimpel - City AM
Choice quote: "More striking is how lovely to look at it is: small and jewel-like, with wallpaper that’s half botanical and half something that could be of a more sexual nature... But once the meal began in earnest, things lost their spot-on-ness."
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See all the 5 Pollen Street reviews
To see how more restaurants are rated, view all our restaurant reviews.
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