Harden’s London Restaurants guide 2019: Texture comes out on top as Jamie Oliver gets a kicking

Under fire: Jamie Oliver was slammed by the guide
Matt Alexander/PA Images
David Ellis @dvh_ellis7 November 2018

Chef Aggi Sverrisson’s decision to sell his 28/50 chain of restaurants and focus on his primary venture, Texture, was vindicated today as Harden’s London Restaurants guide named it among their top restaurants of the year.

In its 28th year, the guide – which prides itself on representing what ‘ordinary’ diners would eat – saw the Scandinavian inflected Texture earning the highest food scores of anywhere included. Recommending the fish tasting menu, Sverrisson’s site was praised as “unbelievable” and “more-than-First-class”.

Unlike other restaurant guides, including Michelin, Harden’s builds its book by relying on surveys from some 8,000 diners across the capital, though it’s noted for the high degree of editorial oversight that stops restaurateurs unduly skewing the results.

Other successes mentioned this year included the recently opened Brat, which ranked as the survey’s highest rated newcomer. Chef Tomos Parry, previously of Kitty Fisher’s, was lauded for having a “smash hit” on his hands, while his Basque cooking – in particular the turbot – was declared “utterly delicious”. Meanwhile, Fulham’s famous Harwood Arms was named as the guide’s favourite gastropub, which hitherto was The Anchor & Hope on the South Bank, overthrown by a single mark.

However, the new guide was not optimistic about the capital’s dining scene, noting that the number of restaurants shutting their doors forever had surged from 84 last year to a record 117.

Old favourites also didn’t fare as well as they might have; the much-lauded River Café once again was declared London’s most overpriced restaurant. With mains all topping £35 this is perhaps of little surprise; the guide notes the “crazy bills you get for sitting in what’s basically a big canteen.”

Elsewhere, despite a reasonably glowing entry, Piccadilly favourite Brasserie Zedel scored only one out of five for its food, which the guide counts as “poor”. The Ivy, another familiar name, had its chain of spin-off restaurants criticised for being “pretentious, unimaginative, chichi and average”.

It was Jamie Oliver, though, who came under the heaviest fire. Slammed as "awful, just awful", his Jamie's Italian chain received the lowest possible scores across the board for food, service and ambience. The sixth year in a row the restaurants have been rated so poorly, Harden's wrote: "No wonder the TV chef had to rescue it with his own, very deep, pockets this year."

The book also found restaurant prices to be rising by an average 4.8 per cent, notably above inflation, while their average price for a three course supper for one with a bottle of wine came in at £55.76.

That said, there was some good news for British cooking, with The Ledbury, Core by Clare Smyth and Adam Handling’s The Frog all receiving high praise.

New restaurants opening in December

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