Delfina is a restaurant I discovered while on route to Zucca and Jose, all three of which are on Bermondsey Street near London Bridge. It has an inviting contemporary look to it – lots of white space – and its high ceilings can be attributed to the fact that it is housed in what was once a converted chocolate factory. The building is now used for exhibitions and the like, and the restaurant opens for lunch from Monday to Friday, and for dinner on a Friday night.

On the Friday evening of our visit we tried seared scallops (£7.50) which disappointed. The scallop had started to go bad with an unpleasant taste to them. Furthermore, they weren’t really scallops (plural), but one scallop cut into two. The accompanying saffron cauliflower was also a touch underdone.

Scallops

(Continue reading her story…)

I had never been to a Boisdale Restaurant before but I was very pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoyed the experience. There are four outposts: Canary Wharf, Bishopsgate, Wiltshire, plus the one that I visited which is in Belgravia. This is the original Boisdale and was opened in 1985 by Ranald Macdonald, the eldest son of the 24th Chief of Clanranald.

A happy blend between Scottish restaurant, jazz club, whisky bar and Cuban cigar haunt, this place exudes a traditional, easy charm. Some of this can be attributed to the décor, a mixture of rich reds, dark greens, mahogany and tartan-covered furnishings. But I think most of it was due to the lovely jazzy tunes being belted out by the fantastic jazz band that was there for our entertainment pleasure. Whatever the reason, the vibe at the Boisdale Belgravia works.

Boisdale are operating an Oyster Festival Menu (6 oysters plus three courses) until April 2012 which I tried. To kick off was a selection of oysters, judged by a panel from Boisdale and The Wright Brothers as being the best rock and native oysters. These included a couple of different Maldon Rocks which I loved for their meatiness, a Duchy of Cornwall No.3 which had a deep mineral flavour, and a Loch Ryan Scottish No. 2 which was voted the winner with its particularly complex flavour.

Oysters

(Continue reading her story…)

Ducksoup has to be the most interesting restaurant name to hit London in recent times, at least I think so anyway. Brought to us by a team of people who previously worked at the Hix chain of restaurants (chef Julian Biggs, Clare Lattin and Rory McCoy), it adopts a similar formula to the one tried and proven in the Russell Norman empire (Polpo, Polpetto, Spuntino, da Polpo) of great location (Dean Street), no bookings except at lunch (very annoying), and reasonably priced food (always appreciated).

But Ducksoup’s approach is slightly more no-frills, so much so that paper napkins come from paper napkin dispensers. The décor is also simpler. It’s comfy, but cool like Spuntino it is not.

There are a number of bar food options, mostly at £3.50, which is great value for this part of town. From the daily changing hand written menu (dotted with a few spelling mistakes) we went for the bar choice of bitter greens with gorgonzola. This was really impressive with the greens being fresh, crispy and nicely dressed. The gorgonzola was creamy, rich and served at the correct room temperature.

Bitter greens

(Continue reading her story…)

Note: Ben Spalding has now left Roganic.

Roganic is the two year pop-up restaurant recently opened by Simon Rogan (hence the name Roganic), the head chef behind the critically acclaimed L’Enclume in Cumbria. The pop-up reference relates to the fact that Roganic takes over the remaining two years of the lease at 19 Blandford Street in Marylebone, previously the restaurant, Michael Moore. The current intention may be to operate Roganic for two years only, but it gives Rogan and head chef Ben Spalding a chance to bring to Londoners a sample of the innovative cooking that made L’Enclume such a go-to restaurant for foodies.

Two years hardly feels like a pop-up. Be that as it may, it does go a long way in explaining why Rogan has decided to spend very little on refurbishing the restaurant. The dining room is tiny and the décor is rather bland, but with only 25 covers it’s comfortable enough.

There is a choice of two tasting menus, a 6-course menu for £55 and a 10-course menu for £80. Allegedly, both menus are designed such that you receive the same quantity of food, even though you obviously get fewer courses with the smaller tasting menu. We started with an amuse bouche of squid ink flatbread with aioli, linseeds and cucumber mousse which was lovely. With its delicate hints of cucumber, it was light and refreshing.

Squid ink flatbread

(Continue reading her story…)

My last visit to St John saw us tucking into their roast suckling pig. It was all rather yummy, but I still maintain, as I did in that write up, that I cannot understand why this restaurant holds a place in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list (currently 41st). St John also has a Michelin star, another fact which I find beggars belief. It might serve head to tail cooking, but its hardly refined or technical cooking. It’s good for a pleasant dinner out, but that’s about it.

I was quite adventurous and went for the pig’s spleen (£7) which was served rolled with bacon. This was my first foray into spleen which was similar in taste to very strong liver. Not particularly enjoyable, its flavour was very powerful which necessitated lots of pickles. This was not a dish for the faint of heart.

Rolled pig's spleen & bacon

(Continue reading her story…)

I have always thought highly of Bryn Williams. That man can cook, and I thoroughly enjoyed my meal the last time I went to Odette’s even though I had a bit of a bad service experience (click here for that post). But the food at Odette’s was good enough, and it deserved another chance.

This time around I dined as a guest of Odette’s. We kicked off the meal with an amuse of mushroom soup with pickled mushrooms. The soup was wonderfully flavoursome and creamy, and the pickled effect of the diced mushroom pieces gave the soup an interesting contrast.

Succulent, moist and perfectly crisped hand dived scallops (£14) were accompanied by some velvety smooth cauliflower and coconut purée that worked well with the star ingredient and which left me wanting more. There were also some salted grapes which weren’t particularly salty but which didn’t quite match with the scallops. Nevertheless, this was a very classy and accomplished dish.

Hand dived scallops

(Continue reading her story…)

Yep – somehow I managed to score another reservation at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. I know I only a few weeks ago (check out that post here), so I debated whether I should go again so soon. But in the interests of research (and for another taste of that meat fruit), I thought why the hell not?

So this blog post will be a little different to the others. I won’t be talking about the things I covered the last time such as the décor. Instead, I’ll focus primarily on the new dishes I tried on this second visit.

But it’s a little hard to past up a mention of the meat fruit (£12.50 – c.1500). It again delivered the ‘wow’ factor to my dining companions who were new to Dinner. The meat fruit looked and tasted great, although it was served a little too cold. This truly has to be one of the most dazzling dishes to grace London tables of late.

JL went for the hay smoked mackerel (£14.50 – c.1730) with lemon salad, gentleman’s relish and olive oil. The mackerel was lovely, and there was a wonderful balance of acidity in this dish, especially from the gentlemen’s relish. (For a copy of this recipe which was published in The Guardian, click here).

Hay smoked mackerel

(Continue reading her story…)

Dinner

The most excited I’ve ever been about getting a restaurant reservation was when the people at El Bulli emailed me to say that I had secured a table. The excitement of getting a reservation at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at the Mandarin Oriental came close, except this time I managed to control my screams of euphoria. The restaurant receives about 6,000 phone calls a day and is now booked out until the end of June. The arrival of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal was highly anticipated and it has to be the hottest opening of 2011. It is so hot that reservations are being traded on ebay.

An Adam Tihany design, the restaurant is beautiful with dark wood panelling and leather furnishings. The previous occupant of this space was Foliage, which Tihany also designed. It’s airy and light, and the high ceilings give it an incredibly spacious feel. It’s also elegant but relaxed, and there’s a touch of mischievousness and fun to the room with the use of some cheeky jelly-mould lights. The kitchen is an open one providing diners with a look-in, but that’s if you don’t find yourself getting distracted by the fabulous views of Hyde Park.

The kitchen at Dinner

(Continue reading her story…)