Helen C.
Yelp
Four stars seems unfair but I just can't rate this quite as highly as Gavroche (Roux's other baby) or my favourite Chez Bruce. It's a four and a half. It just wasn't quite special enough.
We went on a remarkably good value toptable deal, 3 courses plus champagne (normally £15 a glass on its own) for £30. We ate at 6pm - an odd time, but since the deal was on, the restaurant had quite a few tables full. I imagine that's the point!
The entraceway is great, with a 'wine corridor' right after the area they take your coats. The room itself is lovely - very Mad Men. Lounge piano, massively high ceilings, impeccably laid up tables. The service is also top notch, the waiters being both efficient and very friendly rather than stand-offish, which I always like. The guy with the cheese trolley seemed very nervous - perhaps it was his first cheese trolley day - but he smiled and was helpful.
And so to the food - my starter was an egg. A beautifull cooked (soft fried) egg, with some delicious merguez sausage and a harissa dressing. My dining partner had an interesting sardine dish with slightly off-putting presentation - fish skelton sticking out. I do applaud he ability to so perfectly fillet a sardine, but it was a bit odd!
My main of confit duck was good, but not outstanding. Perhaps that's just because if you confit a duck, it's always delicious - even I can make that taste good - but I was expecting something special. Gnocchi light as a feather but the whole dish slightly overpowered with pecorino. My boyfriend's chicken was jus 'nice' - again a little disappointing. His favourite bit was the spinach!
As always, I went mental for the cheese trolley which was, of course, fantastic.
The wine list is as you'd expect extensive, and my glass of grenache delicious - i've realised I keep my red about 5 degrees off the perfect temperature (of course it's that, not that I buy cheap genache :-)) The freebie champagne was delicious.
Poor points: the sundae for dessert looked unbelievably stunning, in its own ice bucket, but tasted odd. Citrus and praline flavour ice cream? Nope, didn't do it for me. Perhaps seperately, but in one mouthful too much. And milk foam is not a thing, unless it's on a capuccino. Get rid! Finally the petit fours were not nice. I was quite shocked - we really didn't like them. One was just a blob of marmelade with some not-crunchy popcorn on. Sad face - the best thing I have ever eaten in my life was a petit four (as Gidleigh Park, in case you want to make a pilgrimage!) so I had high hopes.
All in all, we did have a lovely dinner, impeccably served. But for the full price, I'd probably rather go and try somewhere new than return, which is a shame.