Restaurant review: The Ninth - 'almost faultless'

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.

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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