Evening Standard
Guest reviewer Heather Steele was wowed by a succession of small plates at this new bistro from the St Barts team: smoked cod’s roe dip, ‘Chunion Puffs’ – “polished, one-bite wonders of molten cheese and onion” – and hogget kofta with fermented chilli.
The high point of her lunch was “a genius pork and cuttlefish sausage, accompanied by ribbons of sauerkraut and a quenelle of dark mustard, made in-house with the skins of red grapes. They should sell the stuff by the jar.”
All was not perfect, though. Service was patchy, even in an all-but-empty restaurant, and the 80s soundtrack repeated itself. Still, Heather reckoned, “It’s early days, and just a few more guests and an extra chef behind the pass will make this place sing like its sausage.”
Heather Steele - 2026-06-01The Sunday Times
Giles Coren risked professional humiliation by asking AI – aka “the magic food fairy in my phone (and yours)” – to choose a restaurant for him to review. It came up trumps with a new spot whose menu offered “dish after dish of my favourite sort of thing: simple combinations sparely expressed; thoroughly British but with exotic grace notes; local produce, international expertise…; not entirely unpretentious but, rather, just pretentious enough.”
The cooking was certain to be good, given that it was from the team behind St Bart’s, so Giles suggested “we don’t really need me at all, do we?” Nevertheless, he confirmed that Tavern was “absolutely fantastic”, its black-and-white interior mixing “major Fergus Henderson vibes” with a touch of New York.
“The food simply rocked from start to finish”, and included huge pigskin crackers with tarama, shrimp to gobble whole, a pork and cuttlefish sausage “thick and fat and smooth as an emperor’s dong”, and a “properly meaty, almost gamey” tandoori quail.
Giles Coren - 2026-06-21The Observer
Laura Goodman, the second to review Tavern this week, was impressed by its “monochrome elegance”, its “very London” mix of cool with “cosy bits, like shaggy sheepskins” – all of which suggested, “We’re stylish, but we’re up for a laugh.”
The food lived up to expectations, with highlights that included a ‘chunion puff’ – “a velvety, super-savoury bite, with a vast cloud of parmesan…. It’s my Greggs cheese-and-onion bake dream, refined and distilled to a puff.”
She also enjoyed a plate of mushrooms with roasted yeast and barley. “This looks like a fairytale on a plate – flamboyant funghi from Merit (a family-run, London-based mushroom farm) in a potion-like, bubbling, yeasty foam. It’s my favourite dish by miles.”
Laura Goodman - 2026-06-21
