Berners Tavern, 8th November

Stephen and I were both already convinced that Berners Tavern was going to be gorgeous both aesthetically and gastronomically, so the fact that it was, was no surprise. 

I think Jason Atherton must be having a laught calling it a Tavern. I've rarely dined in grander surroundings whereas a tavern to me is somewhere peasants go to drink. This place is huge, with walls completely covered with framed portraits. They fit together in such a perfect jigsaw that the arrangement must have taken ages to design. You feel like you are dining in the middle of a fine arts gallery. The other decor is no less sumptuous with giant opulent chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and grand banquettes taking centre stage on the floor.

We arrived very promptly at 8 but something had gone wrong and they didn't have our reservation. Luckily the place wasn't as busy as we thought it would be and they were able to find us a table within 15-20 minutes. Which gave us a chance to try out the cocktails at the bar. An expensive chance, for at £12 - £12.50 they weren't cheap, and probably an expense we wouldn't have incurred had our table been ready when we were. But they were rather good, mine in particular with mead in it was one of the more unusual cocktails I've ever had - and I've had a few.

We were lead to our very low-rise table. Luckily it came with low-rise seats so we were in proportion. We were rather tickled, though, that our waiter was the tallest waiter we had ever encountered, making us feel a bit like we were children seated at the kids' table, looking up at the looming adult serving us.

The staff were very friendly. We had a couple of little mishaps but in a way we didn't mind - it made the whole place seem more 'human' than had everything run like clockwork. For example, we had to ask for the wine menu, when we were being asked for our food orders, and then, after our starters were cleared away, someone was sent over to crumb down. He thought we were done and cleared away our placemats and salt and pepper and then brought over the dessert menus. At first I wasn't sure if they just liked to get prepared well in advance but then we pointed out we hadn't had our mains yet and he was very apologetic and whipped those menus away. And returned our salt and pepper. Though not our placemats...

So, the food. Was wonderful. Starting off with the bread and butter they brought us - two slices white, two slices rye (possibly, can't remember now!) it was dense and had the right amount of chewiness. And there was enough butter not to feel you had to eke it out.

I had looked at the menu beforehand and was particularly worried about choosing a starter as I liked the sound of pretty much all of them. A recent potential allergy to seafood helped me narrow it down, but not by much. We thought for once we should try one of the 'renowned' dishes so Stephen had the ham, egg and peas, while I went for the crispy lamb with butternut and parmesan fregola with marrow crumble.

Wow. What a meaty, hearty dish this was. Honestly, I'd have been happy if this was a main course. I had a 'patty' of lamb which was mixed with some greenery and was crispy on the outside. It had been daubed with butternut squash puree, shavings of pecorino and then bits of marrow crumble I believe. This was then served with a pot of the fregola which had a much deeper cheesy, butternut and marrow taste. It was such a profound earthy, meaty flavour. I loved it but it totally blew Stephen away and he pronounced it the star of the meal.

From the bite of his egg, shards of ham and light, minty mushy peas I had, I thought his starter held up pretty well to mine, but he was having none of it.

We continued feeling pretty pleased with ourselves with our mains. I could not resist having the duck, even though I seem to end up having it everywhere. But when it came with such yummy-sounding things, how could I not? The caramel apples in particular were worthy of note although the plum puree and turnip all tasted great with the perfectly cooked duck. And it was so nice to get a bit of leg with it as well. Dark duck meat is fab.

Duck

Lamb

Stephen had the rack of lamb with lamb neck, cous cous, smoked aubergine and cabbage which he also very much enjoyed though he wished he had more sauce with his as the cous cous soaked it all up.

On top of this we ordered some of the duck fat chips and yes, managed to fit them all in as well. We thought that they were better than the chips at (whisper it) the Hand and Flowers!

We were utterly stuffed by now, and must have looked it because when we finally ordered the dessert, our waiter immediately asked if it would be to share. To be honest, we almost passed on dessert as compared to the other courses, nothing was standing out as a 'mustn't-miss' dish. But I'm glad we didn't as we were served the best eclair I've ever had and I bloody loved it. It was a proper pud with lots of gooeyness and cream, and pastry but in a refined way. Salted caramel ice cream on dark chocolate nibs partnered the caramel-apple stuffed eclair. Fantastic. The only qualm we had with the meal was that prices are very steep, a few quid less here or there would have felt like a reasonable price to pay. 

And so, our love affair with Jason Atherton continues. 

*Apologies for the poor quality photos - the lighting, while perfectly ambient for dining, was too low for good pictures.

Le Gavroche, 13th February

Apologies in advance for the quantity and quality (or lack thereof) of photos in this post. We were the youngest diners in the restaurant by at least twenty years, and with my fellow patrons not being of the blogging and tweeting generation, I felt conspicuous, in such an esteemed establishment, taking the few photos I did.

Le Gavroche is the opposite of contemporary in decor, but without being staid. You feel comfortable in your surroundings, as if you're sitting in a favourite wealthy uncle's library. There is no background music - Le Gavroche gets booked up months in advance and so can rely on there being a soundtrack of chatter and clinking to distract you from the sound of your companions eating.

Just one of the quirky decorative touches

We were offered a glass of champagne each on the house (perhaps because it was so close to Valentine's Day?) and soon after our canapes arrived. An egg salad 'tart' adorned with three coral beads of caviar and a finger of chorizo wrapped in pastry. This was my first taste of caviar and I must say I liked it although even such a small amount was so fishy I can't imagine eating it by the scoopful. It made me feel like I was eating sushi. The chorizo pastry was gorgeously salty and meaty. Wouldn't have complained if there had been one or two more of those.

Next up was our amuse bouche - smoked eel with the lightest, subtlest horseradish cream I have ever tasted (because I dine on this kind of stuff all the time don'tchaknow). And the eel was another first for me but this was fine dining and of course it bore no real resemblance to it's natural form. It was just a perfectly shaped piece of fish and quite a delicately flavoured one at that.

At about this time our order was taken. We had decided to treat ourselves for Valentine's Day by coming to Le Gavroche but that doesn't mean we were suddenly flush with cash - we had decided to choose lunch here for a reason. They do a set lunch for only 52.60 which includes three courses and half a bottle of wine. (Bear in mind that a main from the a la carte started at around 30 pounds and you see what an excellent deal this is.)

There was a choice of three for each course. For some reason the set menu was all in French, whereas the a la carte menu gave you the translations. This wasn't really a problem as my French is pretty up to scratch (at least when it comes to food) but there was one item I couldn't puzzle out even with the context. Our waiter was more than happy to help and I ended up ordering this for my starter -  the veloute de topinambour, or Jerusalem artichoke. This came with iberico jamon and more artichoke in the bowl and then the velvety veloute is poured over them.

What a deeply rich, buttery and savoury taste this was. If I hadn't know it was artichoke I probably wouldn't have been able to place it, it just tasted delicious and 'rooty'. The mouthfuls where I had some of the ham with it were fabulous - the touch of saltiness it added working perfectly. I think this was actually my favourite dish of the meal!

Stephen chose the pan fried seabass with chive butter and said it was a very fine dish, though he commented that once again, in a high-end establishment, the skin wasn't crispy! We surmised it had been fried only on the one side as you could see the bottom was cooked through and it grew more translucent towards the top.

We both ordered the lamb neck on beans with wild garlic for our mains. Our first bites of the lamb were a little on the dry side but it soon gave way to pink, slightly fatty, tender meat. The bean and puree provided a worthy accompaniment, and there was some token green stuff to make us feel marginally healthier.

By this point I had availed myself twice of the bread basket yet still didn't turn down the chance to complete the hat trick - there were three varieties of home baked bread on offer, and therefore three I had. With a choice of salted or unsalted butter that was replenished as soon as a dent was made in it, each kind was moreish; a rustic campagne, a French bread and a light, chewy rye. 

I made an unusual choice for dessert for me - I went for the ice cream and sorbets option. They wheel over their cart of ice creams and scoop the flavours you want at the table. Taking the advice from our neighbours who were very friendly and obviously seasoned fine diners, I had a scoop of each - wild berry, pear, blood orange (my favourite), milk chocolate, vanilla and one other I can't remember!

Stephen had the cheese platter, instigating another trolley being wheeled over from which you can make your selection. I was too timid to take a picture while it was at our table, but I took one from afar. Cheese trolley? Cheese 16-wheeler more like!

My idea of heaven - and you can only see half of it!

Cheese was served with yet more butter, and some wholemeal 'melba toast' studded with fruit and nuts. Quince, a chutney and celery were served as relishes. I can't remember exactly which cheeses he chose, but all were, predictably, lovely. (I'm almost never going to say anything different about cheese.)

To finish we had the customary petits fours - a sweet marshmallow, a brandy snap, a candied kumquat and a miniature perfect pistachio brownie. Our kindly neighbours tried to encourage us to order a second serving of these, as we seemed to like them so much, and although I was tempted, if only for that brownie, we had eaten quite enough by then!

Our petits fours with our table 'mascot' in the background

Service was polished and attentive, mostly with a smile and a willingness to answer any questions, though for some reason the man devoted to keeping our glasses refreshed was rather stern.

Eating at Le Gavroche is obviously not something I can make a habit of, but it was perfect for a celebratory occasion. I loved Pollen Street Social for its laid-back, accessible feel, but when you really want to spoil yourself, you want a place that feels grand and special. Le Gavroche is definitely that.

Find the menu & restaurant information on Zomato

Pollen Street Social, 17th March

Going to a Michelin starred restaurant for lunch for no special reason isn’t something that most people would consider, but I posit that you should when it comes to Pollen Street Social. As it happens, we went to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday, but I fully intend to return and I’m not going to wait for a special occasion to crop up before I do.

The reason I say all this is because the set lunch at Pollen Street Social is an absolute steal. Two courses are £22.00 and three are £25.50. With wine and service included our entire meal came to just shy of £50 each and we were absolutely stuffed, having thoroughly enjoyed some superb cuisine.

In some places, if you go for the set menu, you might feel you are being relegated to a subclass of diner, as the choices on the menu are limited and sometimes don’t seem to showcase the best of what a restaurant can do. This was not the case with Pollen Street. All of us could have quite happily had any of the dishes on offer for any of the courses and not felt hard done by. Not only that, but we didn’t lose out on having the full dining experience by going for the set menu. By that I mean we were offered the bread basket not once but twice (and yes, I did have some both times), we were furnished with a palate cleanser between main and dessert, and at the end of the meal we were given a delightful mini cake to round it off. As an added bonus, when we booked the main dining area was full and we were seated in the bar area. There were only about 4 other tables in this area, at the back of the room, which made it feel like we had our own private dining area, away from the bustle and noise of the hoi polloi. The only downside being that we didn’t get the spectacle of the chefs at work, or see the dessert bar laid out at the back.

And so, on to the food. We had a choice of three starters – pork knuckle and foie gras terrine with coco beans, squid and sourdough toast; hake with slow-cooked egg and curry rice; and mackerel tartar. Poor mackerel lost out as the five of us found the other two dishes more tempting. I had the terrine (anyone who reads this may by now realise gambling on me having a terrine as a starter is a safe bet). It was an excellent introduction to the standard of the food there. The bread was dense with plenty of flavour and the terrine was much richer than I thought it would be. I think that’s the first time I’ve had foie gras and I think that is what accounted for the luxurious taste. The star of the starters was the egg dish which three of my dining companions ordered. It was presented as a large, gelatinous looking globe of egg with flakes of fish and fried garlic all over it, and then a velvety vivid green soup was poured around it. Stunning. I had a small taste of Stephen’s and it was very silky.

Almost forgot to mention the tart picallili (green blob partially obscured)

There's some oxtail with that there marrow

For our mains again there were three choices – a fish dish that no one really bothered to do more than glance at (though it sounded nice), and then two meat options. Ox cheek with salt baked onion, mashed potato and bone marrow, and dingly dell pork belly with spiced pig’s cheek, pear puree and lardo potatoes. Stephen and I had the pork, the others had the ox cheek. I was over the moon that each dish came with a separate mini tureen of jus which the waiters poured over the meat. I love a little theatre at the table. Once again, fabulous food. I did have one potato that, dare I say it, may have been a tad underdone. And the pork belly did not have crispy crackling on it’s top, so if that’s something which would lose it points in your opinion, then be warned.

Sprouting broccoli - a token effort at some veg

When the dishes arrived I will admit to thinking – that’s not enough! But as I forked in the last mouthful, I was already getting that slightly uncomfortable full feeling. I could have easily gone without dessert and still not needed to eat until much later in the evening.
But, while we were there... Well, silly not to! There are two main choices for dessert but also a selection of sorbets and ice creams on offer. I had the rhubarb sorbet with pistachio financier and ginger, Stephen had the chocolate pave with vanilla ice cream and smoked vanilla crumb. The other sorbets on offer were mango, passionfruit, beetroot and one other I have forgotten. The ice cream choices were vanilla, chocolate, 
milk and honey, and tonka bean. 

But before we had that, we were proffered our palate cleanser. My biggest regret of this meal is that I didn’t take a picture of this when it was first set down. They had recreated a soft boiled egg. But it was nothing to do with an egg at all. The bottom of it was pineapple granita, there was then a thick layer of lychee foam (which looked like egg white) and this was then topped with  a passionfruit coulis (which look like a bit of soft yolk poking through. It was incredibly refreshing, zingy and sweet. Wonderful. 

Finally, dessert was served. I think this may have been my favourite dish of the day, mainly because it was something I wouldn’t normally go for. The rhubarb sorbet was refreshing and the pistachio financier nice and crumbly. Some stewed rhubarb and chantilly cream were some nice added extras. 
I didn’t even have any food envy of Stephen’s amazing looking chocolate pave, which tasted as good as it looked. Even the ice cream/sorbets that the others ordered were presented beautifully. Laid out in individual cups nestled in ice like oysters. So, so pretty! 

Chocolate pave

rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

Sorbet selection

A pumpkin and apricot bite-size cake and the meal was done!

Arbutus, Friday 16th September

The basis/inspiration for my lists are Time Out’s excellent 1000 Things to do books in…, in this case London. It has since mutated to include recommendations and things I see as I go about my daily life, plus other sources. I’ve recently joined the Twittersphere and that is brilliant for discovery.

My boyfriend and I find Time Out’s recommendations to be a bit hit and miss to be honest. But that just gives us the perfect excuse to try things out for ourselves. So, onto my first entry proper – Arbutus. In particular, the set menu they do as a pre-theatre treat, which yes, was recommended in 1000 Things to do in London. At just under £20 for three courses it sounds too good to be true. In some ways it is; they do restrict you to only two choices per course, which had me a little worried. Their menu changes daily and seems to contain a lot of offal so you can’t tell before you book if you’ll like what’s on offer. As a child I mainly ate plain chicken and plain omelettes when I went out to eat, and though my tastes have increased almost exponentially since then, I’m still a little fussy. But, one of my good friends had already been to Arbutus and spoke highly of it, and for that price it seemed worth the risk. We also happened to have the perfect excuse to spoil ourselves – the 4 year anniversary of having met my boyfriend occurred last week.

We had reservations for 6:15. Another downside of the set menu could be that you can only book between 5 and 7, and they give you a 1.5 hour time limit. I don’t have any problems eating early though, and had made sure to finish my lunch around noon and resist any snacks in order to work up my appetite.  I was a little early when I got to the restaurant to meet my boyfriend so went over to Soho Square to read, where I discovered Stephen doing precisely the same thing. We greeted each other and then he surprised me with a little gift. I’ve chosen to mention this not only to boast of what a thoughtful boyfriend I have, but because the chocolates came from Paul A Young. I don’t think I have this chocolate shop on my list, but that is remiss of me. They have a reputation for confectionary delights and I’ve wanted to try one of their salt caramels for quite a while. Stephen had bought me a selection of slightly out of the ordinary chocolates, three of which were the famed salt caramels. Of course, I didn’t want to spoil my dinner so I put them away for later.

We were still a trifle early but I had passed by the restaurant once already and it didn’t seem busy so we thought they wouldn’t mind seating us early and we were right. Arbutus is a quite a clean, calm sort of restaurant. Lots of beiges and creams, plus a few naughty vintage porn photos thrown in to liven things up. The wait staff were friendly and even a bit laddish, as Stephen remarked. We were offered bread and some very creamy butter straight away, and this was regularly proffered before our mains arrived. I love bread, but at the same time didn’t want to stuff myself on it so I had just the two pieces, as did Stephen. The second piece came in handy to mop up the last traces of our first course. As I said before, there are only two choices on offer per course and between us we had almost every dish. For starters the choices were soft poached egg on lentils with spinach or curly kale and potato soup. For mains it was a choice between rabbit in mustard sauce or silver mullet with carrot and cumin. For dessert the options were meringue with custard and praline or cheese. It was easy for me to pick my menu – the only soup I really like is tomato so poached egg was the winner there. I’m not too fussed about fish – I don’t like to gamble on ones I haven’t tried yet – so I went for the rabbit, and then as much as I love cheese, I will still pick something sweet over it if I have the choice. So I did. Stephen went for the other options, except for the starter where he joined me in having an egg. We do love our poached eggs – they’re practically an essential for breakfast at the weekends for us.

Another plus of Arbutus is that their wines are very reasonably priced and they even do them all by the carafe! They price them at more or less a third of a bottle (and a third of a bottle is what you get) so you aren’t paying more for less, as it were. This is ideal if you’re going there because you want to dine without breaking the bank balance. I chose the Picpoul de Pinet, simply because I’d never had it before. It was fragrant, flavoursome and fruity. I’m glad I tried it. The carafe works out to one generous glass of wine each (though we didn’t pour it out all at once) and it was a bit of a chore to make that one glass last the whole meal, both because I do drink quickly, and because we liked the wine.

We didn’t have to wait long for our starters to come out. I enjoyed mine more than I thought I would as lentils wouldn’t normally be something I seek out. The egg was warm but the whole dish was quite refreshing. There were only a few sprigs of spinach, uncooked, and I wouldn’t have minded more of that, but overall it was very tasty. The dressing, which I think was a bit of a mustard vinaigrette was definitely worth saving some bread for.

Not too long after, our mains arrived. I definitely chose the best meal and had no food envy whatsoever. Especially when Stephen told me his fish was, indeed, very fishy – verging on as strong as mackerel, which I’ve established in the past as too strong for me. If I’m not eating salmon or tuna, I like my fish to taste as bland as possible. My rabbit was fantastic. It was slow cooked – all juicy and tender, and came in a mustard sauce which was not too mustardy, just quite creamy with a bit of a bite. Some more spinach, baby carrots and boiled potatoes bulked up the rest of the meal. Stephen said his fish was very nice, sitting on a restaurant-style flourish of a smear of carrot and cumin sauce and with some pieces of beetroot to accompany it. It was a romantic meal so naturally I shared some of my dish with my paramour and he concurred that it was good. ‘Rabbit is definitely much better than chicken’ he declared. I hadn't until then been aware they were in competition.

The dessert was probably the weakest course, which is an unusual thing for me to say. I had been looking forward to some gooey, chewy meringue but what I actually had was an isle flottante, with some candied nuts crushed and crumbled on top, and a few pitted in the meringue. It was very sweet and reminded me of eating a big marshmallow. What with the candy covered nuts, I felt like it was Easter. It was pleasant, but the meringue was so light and fluffy, it was almost like eating nothing. I prefer my desserts to be less polite, more sinful, gooey, sticky messes. Stephen had opted for the cheese, he claimed for altruistic reasons because he knows I love it so much and so I could have some of his, but in truth he now loves it almost as much as me. The cheese of the day was a brie de meaux. It came with what we think was an apricot chutney, and the slice looked quite miserable on the plate. They offer you more bread to go with it, which in some ways is a shame as we’d already had quite a bit of bread and some crackers would have been a preferred substitution. The cheese was potent to say the least and more than made up for its meagre appearance by its flavour.  It was creamy adn squidgy and tangy. We finished the remaining drops of our wine, and settled the bill. A brilliant £52 including service.

As far as set menus go, this is definitely worth doing. £25 each for that kind of meal is a bargain and feels like just the right kind of meal to have if you really were going to the theatre after – filling but still quite light. Not something that will sit heavily on you while you are entertained for the rest of the night. Or if you plan on carrying on drinking, like we did. We also really liked the atmosphere. I'm used to dining at around 8, the peak dinner time in restaurants where the restaurant is noisy and the waiters are busy. Eating at this time, at least in this restaurant, was really pleasant - it had a very relaxed atmosphere and Stephen and I didn't feel in the least bit self conscious about opting for the cheapy menu. It helped that several other diners were also eating from that menu - including one lone diner. I wondered if he might be a fellow blogger...

Set menu - £18.95 (optional service charge of 12.5% added)

250 ml carafe of Picpoul de Pinet – approx £8.50

Oh – and for those wondering about the chocolates… scrumptious! I’ve eaten almost half the box (no, there weren’t that many) and have savoured every one. It included some unusual flavours like wasabi, and a goat’s cheese one that was meant to taste a bit like cheesecake but didn’t. The highlights are definitely the salt caramel ones though. I will miss them when I eat the final one.





Find the menu & restaurant information on Zomato