28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen, a wine bar and restaurant, is the brainchild of sommelier Xavier Rousset, one of the men behind the critically acclaimed one Michelin starred Texture which he owns with head chef Agnar Sverrisson and where I had a thrilling meal recently. The restaurant is so named as most of the world’s vineyards, in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, are located within these latitudes. Rousset is a master sommelier with a string of awards to his name including the accolade of winning Ruinart UK Sommelier of the Year at the tender age of 22. It therefore seems fitting that Rousset would open up a wine bar and call it 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen.

I had such a thrilling meal at Texture recently I felt inspired to try 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen. Despite its association with Texture, 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen isn’t a Michelin starred restaurant. Rather what it purports to offer is decent French fare and a range of good wines at reasonable prices. 28-50 Wine Workshop and Kitchen has a choice of 15 red and 15 white wines by the glass, carafe and bottle. But most impressively, the wines by the glass include a 75ml option (from £2.15 to £20 for a 75ml glass), the beauty of which is the opportunity to try oodles of smaller glasses of different wines for less money than what you might otherwise have had to spend.

A foie gras and chicken liver parfait was wonderfully creamy, but it lacked a decent liver flavour and was more texture than taste. The accompanying peach chutney, with its rustic characteristics, worked well with the parfait. Less successful was the accompanying pickles which were so acidic that they were difficult to eat.

Foie gras & chicken liver parfait

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Lutyens

With a school friend visiting from Australia, I wanted to go somewhere elegant for lunch. You see, we’re ladies now, and our tastes have matured as well. Gone are the days when we use to go to the movies on Tuesdays after school (Tuesdays was, and still is, movie discount day in Sydney) and then head to Pizza Hut for $5 all-you-can-eat pizza afterwards. And besides, we needed a nice venue for somewhere to catch up. School friends are a unique breed – they’ve seen you through all the trials and tribulations of growing up, been there through the first schoolboy crush, picked you up after the first heartbreak (and of course stressed with you through all the exams). So there was much to gossip about as I was desperate to get all the latest on love, work and life in general.

Another school friend who now lives in Bristol joined us, so we were three. I chose Lutyens which is named after Edwin Lutyens, the British architect who designed the building in which the restaurant is housed. Lutyens is the new Conran showpiece on Fleet Street, so if you thought that the great maestro was retiring after selling his dining group to D&D London in 2006, then it’s obvious that this is not the case. Two restaurant openings in one year (the other was Boundary) and he looks like he’s on a mission to take the London dining scene by storm again. But Lutyens is more than just a restaurant which seats 130 people. Opening on Monday 29 June and located in the former Reuters building, it features a bar, a charcuterie counter, a crustacean and sushi bar, a members club and 4 private dining and meeting rooms.

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