This article is taken from the April 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
On 3 February I telephoned Rabbit on the King’s Road in Chelsea to make a reservation. They said that the restaurant preferred customers to use their online booking system. Fair enough. The confirmation arrived, with the usual pass-ag Ts&Cs.
The next day, a man named Jason emailed me asking me if I’d like to pre-book a “Mushroom Marmite Éclair with Egg Confit and Cornichon, at £3.50 (each)”. That felt a bit needy, but I let it pass.
I had dinner on 6 February. At 01.26 am on 7 February, Jason emailed to ask how my experience had been. On 9 February, Jason emailed again, hoping that I had savoured every bite! Might I care to leave a little review? Or perhaps I’d like to contact another address with any “Local and Wild” suggestions for the “Intimate” farm to fork experience?
Seeing the chefs at work is not the same as smelling them
We know how this one goes. Cut forward six months and Jason is explaining to his probation officer that he never meant to hurt me. He just wanted my attention.
Restaurant loos are a good gauge of what a place really thinks of its customers. Jason might want to transfer his bathroom adornments to one of his lock-ups before his barrister gets what the defendant would doubtless refer to as an eyeful. The lavatory seats at Rabbit feature shooting cartoons in a muted eighties palette — here a blowsy Sloane emerges from a hedgerow, coyly concealing her cleavage with her Barbour, there a slightly befuddled gent is “Taking Home a Brace”, Blonde and Brunette, presumably priced individually. Far too feeble to be offensive but wearying, which pretty much sums up Rabbit.
Ok, Jason. I don’t want to be unkind, but if you want to have it straight, your restaurant is really not very nice. The punters know that the glaring lighting is there to discourage them from lingering so you can get two sittings in. Your tables are too small and too close together.
Having to put the wine on the floor because there’s no room for the Mushroom Marmite Éclair (which incidentally tastes like a fungoid fart wrapped in a flannel) is not relaxing. The couple next to us had come for a romantic birthday date, Jason. They didn’t want our bread sharing space with the cake. Also, your house butter is slimy and overchurned, less yeastily rustic than yeast infection.
The BBQ spiced cauliflower might have been alright if there had been any spices, but the venison croquettes managed to be both dry and greasy, resentful little scats unrelieved by a tarragon emulsion which hadn’t emulsified and which bore a suspicious resemblance to the mustard cream sauce which was doing nothing for the lukewarm Beal’s Farm blood sausage and may also have been involved with the garlic and lemon butter in which the single south coast scallop was pretending it didn’t feel left out.
I know this is hard, but you need to hear me, Jason. Boasting about your Robata grill isn’t enough: you have to know how to use it. Duck breast is generally served pink, at least, not the same uniform sludge colour as the waxed jackets on your bog seats.
Likewise, the beef rump didn’t need to be fired to the colour of Titian’s St Lawrence; rare is great, you should try it sometime. Chimichurri is a raw sauce, true, but it generally has more ingredients than crude olive oil.
The promised Jerusalem artichoke and bok choy were shrivelled and sludgy, the homemade pickles nowhere to be seen, a stretch given that the kitchen needs a serious refresher in personal boundaries. Some people like visible, I get that, but seeing the chefs at work is not the same as smelling them.
Another hint: side orders are meant to come on the side, not a neighbouring chair, where our waitress left our bistro fries with house seasoning until they and we abandoned hope. “House seasoning” was pushing it a bit too, tbh. “Salt” is a fair description. Just, perhaps, not quite so very much of it.
We gave it a go though, didn’t we? The dark chocolate mousse with cherry compote and hazelnuts was fine, if occupational therapy is your thing.
And the wine list has points; it’s varied and concise. Our Swartland Shiraz was juicy and well-priced, and hopefully it will come out of the birthday girl’s shoe. Good to see a proper digestif list too, though I’m sure you’ll understand now why we didn’t stay for an “After Dinner Tipple”?
So you do see, Jason, why I can’t come back? You can stop with the emails, it’s becoming embarrassing for us both. Maybe have a rethink. Lose the word “immersive” before “dining experience”, because how, exactly, is being inside a restaurant “immersive”, except in Rabbit’s case in other peoples’ conversations? “Intrusive” could work. Or how about “invasive”?
Actually, please don’t contact me any more. I don’t want to book for Mother’s Day, or Sunday lunch or tell you when my birthday is. Your messages are going straight to the bin, you know, that place where you get your foraged vegetables. You’re making me feel uncomfortable now, and that’s not what restaurants are meant to do. Please stop. Rabbit, I’m ghosting you.
