AA Gill says that while Jason Atherton is an inspired and sophisticated chef, the food at Pollen Street Social is not what you want to eat with friends for dinner.
Scoring the restaurant just two out of five stars, the Sunday Times food critic says former Gordon Ramsay Holdings chef Atherton offers plates suffering “from the most common defect of trendy kitchens: nobody eats them before they get to the customer”.
However, he admits: “The skill and the commitment and the sophistication are all there. There needs to be a lot less cogitation and a great deal more gurgitation.”
Meanwhile John Walsh, writing in The Independent, says there’s a great deal to enjoy at Pollen Street Social, adding that Atherton has clearly put his heart and soul into the restaurant.
On one of his main courses he enthuses: “These were vivid and extravagant flavours I’d travel miles to experience.”
The Observer’s restaurant critic Jay Rayner argues Barbecoa, the meat-driven restaurant by Jamie Oliver and US barbecue enthusiast Adam Perry Lang in the City of London, is an opportunity missed.
He says: “The bizarre thing is that Barbecoa clearly could get it right because the two bits of proper ribbery on the menu are very good indeed. [...] But that was it. Just those two dishes.”
The Independent on Sunday’s Amol Rajan finds the food at the Curlew in Bodiam, East Sussex, is a triumph and totally deserving of its Michelin star, while the Sunday Telegraph’s Zoe Williams says nothing could be more perfect that the Star Inn, Harome, Yorkshire.
Finally writing for the Sunday Herald, Joanna Blythman finds Mark Greenaway’s food at the Hawke & Hunter in Edinburgh is a knock-out – scoring it a perfect 10.
Restaurants don’t fare well in this week’s round-up of What the Critics Say, with the 
Rose Gray, the founder of the acclaimed 
