The Ninth arrived on the scene earlier this year with an "understated fanfare", says Grace Dent in the London Evening Standard.
It has quickly become one of the go-to places in central London for some of the best food in town, she says. Headed by Jun Tanaka, who cut his teeth as La Gavroche, it offers "fine, satisfying, perilously rich and almost faultless" French cooking.
For all its utility, the name "quietly tell us an interesting story about the state of culinary ambition in Britain right now", says Jay Rayner in The Guardian.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A few years ago, a chef like Tanaka would be expected to open a new restaurant decked out in white tablecloths, an air of superiority and a price list to match. Today, however, those "sodden with both technique and talent" just want to feed us, he says.
The result is "a perfectly formed little restaurant" with food that swings between "bloody lovely" and "oh my gosh".
The cooking seems to embody "that mysterious attribute of the best Mediterranean food whereby good, simple things are made great through a bit of thought rather than huge elaborations of technique", says Keith Miller in the Daily Telegraph.
Whether it is the oxtail croquettes, salted ox cheek with Jerusalem artichoke puree or a whole uncooked mackerel fillet lightly flamed to give it a high smokey tang, says Time Out, The Ninth "has a genius for making every ingredient taste as good as it possibly can".
The Ninth is at 22 Charlotte Street, London W1
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.