Butcher's Tap and Grill
For our tenth anniversary we made a trip to Marlow, a small town on the banks of the river Thames. The town features a suite of gastronomic pleasures. The two Michelin starred restaurant and Michelin starred pubs are both owned and operated by chef Tom Kerridge, which made for an amazing gastronomic weekend getaway. The getaway package also included a voucher for his Butcher's Tap and Grill, which is both a butcher and… a grill. We got a nice haul of barbecue meat from there!
Now, a few months later, we had something else to celebrate, and in that time, a new Butcher's Tap and Grill has opened in Chelsea, in London.
Although they do plenty of simpler (and cheaper dishes), we selected the Beef Wellington for two. We were informed in advance that it would take some time for it to be prepared. This gave us an excellent opportunity to enjoy a cocktail. I had an Aged Beef Fat Old Fashioned, and my wife a Butcher's Bloody Mary. Both excellently made.
The Beef Wellington was served a while later, and was served with green beans and some mashed potato. The latter could have been a bit more generous. There was also a charred onion, and fried onions on a crispy salad leaf. The Wellington itself was splendid. Nicely pink in the middle, surrounded by a moist mushroom duxelles, and covered with a perfectly crisp pastry — no soggy bottom! The dish was finished with a red wine sauce.
With dinner, we enjoyed a bottle of Bedoba, a Georgian red wine. We later found out it's the same wine we had at the Hand and Flowers in Marlow!
We were still a bit peckish and finished our meal with a pudding. My wife had a sticky toffee pudding, and I enjoyed an apple crumble.
The Butcher's Tap and Grill is a lovely pub, with great food, although it is the usual pub fare (the Sunday roast looked great). They also serve great burgers and speciality cuts. A lot of choice. It isn't a cheap place, but we thought quite worth the price, and are already thinking of a reason to return!
St. JOHN
We went to St. JOHN on a chilly evening. We were sat upstairs directly in front of the door, and with the aircon also turned on it was verging on cold. I arrived a bit early and noticed people dining, whilst wearing their outdoor coats.
St. John, like most restaurants in London these days, operates on a “sharing concept” which is fine, but doesn't work for all foods, like soup for example.
We shared the venison rissole, which came with an extremely punchy aioli — a bit heavy on the raw garlic to be honest — which was nice. I then had a delicious artichoke soup and my husband enjoyed the smoked mackerel, with its bones in place, as starters. The smoked mackerel was served with some lemon herbed potatoes, which complemented the flavour of the fish well.
My main, the middle white pork, was underwhelming, with something of the school dinner about it. The pork was very dry and served on a cold plate with carrots that were well on the overcooked side. For some reason the entire dish was also drowned in what appeared to be gravy and oil, which didn't improve or moisten the dry pork, it just made it tepid and greasy. My husband's hake dish was better, served with leeks of just the right firmness, and a not-so-garlicky mayonnaise.
We had a bottle of the house white wine which worked well with all the dishes.
The mains took forever to turn up. The serving staff apologised for this, and offered us a bag of their madeleines as recompense, which we took away. Those fresh warm madeleines were absolutely delicious, and by far the best thing served. We'd go back for those, and the soup… But not for the mains.
Café Deco
We were supposed to visit Café Deco together last November, but then I ended up in A&E for the evening, with my wife going on her own. She liked it well enough then to make a repeat visit for the two of us.
I arrived a little before her, and I was sat in a cosy and small room in the back, with room for barely 6 patrons. Café Deco does modern British cuisine, with some forays into French and Indian styles.
For her starter, my wife chose the charcuterie (from the snack section), and I picked the Mulligatawny (from the starter section). They slightly forgot that they were supposed to come together, but that was sorted out soon enough. The soup was thick with lentils and spices, and had a good kick to it. The charcuterie was flavourful too.
For her main, my wife picked a cicoria, carrot, and cannellini bean stew. The flavours were deep, the carrots a little crunchy, and the beans nice and buttery. I selected the pork chop as my main. I don't really often eat pork, but on this chilly autumn evening it felt the right choice for the moment. It was served with a pumpkin and radicchio gratin. The chop was nicely seasoned, and the gratin of roasted vegetables were a nice and slightly sweet accompaniment.
With our meal we also enjoyed a lovely bottle of a Spanish Granache, and created little sparkles on the tongue.
And then it was dessert time, for which we both had a scoop of the mint choc chip ice cream, and a dessert wine to round out the evening.
Café Deco is on the up market side, and not particularly cheap. But it was a very nice meal indeed.
Spagnoletti
Spagnoletti is an Italian style restaurant operating with a sharing dishes concept. We visited this in the middle of October, when it was reasonably busy.
Just like other sharing dishes places, they recommend a certain number of plates per person. In Spagnoletti's case, three to four. As part of this concept, most of the dishes also come at random moments.
We weren't especially hungry, and the waiter was surprised that we did not order the recommended amount of plates. However, for our starters we ordered the wild mushrooms and truffle arancini, with a whipped goat's cheese, and the suckling pig and black pudding croquettes. The arancini stood out. They had a perfectly crisp and seasoned coating and a smooth mushroom filling, and the whipped goats cheese was both delicious alone and as an accompaniment to the arancini. The croquettes sadly were a little underwhelming, both in terms of flavour and the amount of filling.
For her main course, my wife picked the burrata, which was served with butternut squash and chicory leaves. I chose the risotto with a pulled shin of beef and bone marrow. The burrata showed up first, and we soon realised that the warm risotto wasn't coming until the cold burrata had been eaten. The burrata with butternut squash, with a few bits of mandarin was a good combination, with the slightly bitter chicory rounding it off. The risotto, once it arrived half an hour later, was quite wet, with the rice on top of the pulled beef and bone marrow, and had an odd “gravy” sitting with the meat. It had depth, but it was a little strange to eat… and overall far too wet
Because the burrata came before the risotto, we didn't really get to eat at the same time, even though we had mentioned that these would be our main dishes. Awkward. Luckily, they did have a couple of interesting beers from the Portobello microbrewery that we enjoyed during the waiting time.
Sometimes, a place that does "sharing dishes" works fine, but in this case, it fell a little flat on its face.
Bubala
We visited Bubala, a vegetarian and vegan restaurant, on a warm-ish Friday night in October.
Bubala is located very centrally, just a few minutes walk from Oxford Street, Regent Street, and just around the corner from Carnaby Street.
The restaurant felt cosy inside, although the lighting was a bit on the dim side. It was fairly busy when we arrived. We were seated quickly, and shortly afterwards the server arrived with menus and complimentary still or sparkling water.
Bubala is a sharing plates type restaurant, serving a Mediterranean inspired cuisine. They had vegetarian or vegan set menus available for £45/person, but we opted to pick from the à la carte menu. We ordered flatbreads, hummus with chilli oil, baba ganoush, sweetcorn, halloumi with a fennel honey crust, and (surprisingly spicy) spanked cucumbers. To drink we enjoyed a bottle of white wine.
The food was delivered fairly quickly, but this led to an issue as the table wasn't really big enough for more than a couple of the sharing dishes, which were all quite large and flat. I ended up having to put my cutlery on the bench seat beside me, in order to have enough space for the water and wine glasses. My husband juggled cutlery.
Overall the food was tasty, and service good, and we'd return with veggie friends. If we returned we would consider ordering only a couple of dishes, and then ordering more when those were eaten, due to the table size. We ordered an extra flatbread and this arrived hot from the grill within a couple of minutes.
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