The Chamberlayne
Back when I just moved to London, now nearly 15 years ago, I would frequent the Chamberlayne a lot. It was the closest pub with a good food selection, and the best chips in town.
It has changed hands, and name, a few times in the intervening time, but it's now back as the Chamberlayne, and we decided to try them out again.
We started with a happy hour, but then of Oysters and not drinks. The selection included Jersey and Carlingford oysters, as well as the river oysters Louet Feisser. Oysters have started to grown on me. I wouldn't touch them a decade ago, but would now happily shuck them myself.
After our starters, I opted for a Grilled Cornish gurnard, a lovely chewy fish served on a bed of haricot beans with bagna cauda, a garlic and anchovies purée, and some herbs. I am not usually a fan of beans, but these were nice and soft and buttery and worked well with the fish and purée.
My wife went for a more traditional choice: a beef burger served with chips. The burger was well seasoned and moist, with some enjoyable pickles. The chips were good too, but were not living up to the standard that I remembered from all these years ago.
They had several ice creams and sorbets for dessert. We were already reasonably happy, and had a single scoop each. I had a raspberry swirl, and my wife a salted caramel. Both excellent to finish our meal.
The Chamberlayne had a pleasant and relaxed atmosphere, with good food at reasonable prices. An excellent local option.
The Devonshire
After trying to get a table for a long while, we finally managed to snag one. We have been to this location before (when it was a Jamie's Italian), and it's situated right next to Piccadilly Circus. The downstairs is a pub, and upstairs there are a dozen of tables and a large roaring grill.
The menu is handwritten, and has sections on starters, grilled items, mains, sauces, and sides. While we were looking at it, some bread and butter appeared. And a few minutes later our wine. After our waiter poured a glass, she took it away to keep it cool in a fridge. Both of us are not keen on this practise — we'd really rather see our wine so that we can pour our own, at time of choosing.
From the starters section, I selected a white crab salad, which came with slices of crisp apple, and crunchy chicory leaves. The crab meat was nicely seasoned and slightly sweet. My wife had three juicy scallops with a crispy topping, served with malt vinegar and some lardons. The scallops were cooked just right.
At this point it was time to top up our glasses, and we convinced our new waiter to leave the bottle on our table, even though that meant it wasn't cooled.
For her main, my wife had the fillet of halibut, while I opted for the lamb cutlets. The mains don't come with anything, so we also had duck fat crisps, and a pea, onion, and bacon dish to go with our meal. That did mean we had to assemble our plates ourselves, as they all came separately. My lamb cutlets were great. Perfectly cooked, and still moist. My wife's halibut was well seasoned and also splendid.
It was still early, and sometimes it just feels right for pudding. After some discussion we decided to share the sticky toffee pudding, with a side of some dessert wine. I am usually not too keen on sticky toffee pudding, but I was really getting my fork into this one. I secretly wished we hadn't shared it!
It was a great meal out, and I now understand why it is so hard to get a table, especially earlier in the evening.
Lita
Following the lead of a better-known, piano-playing food critic, we visited Lita, a new restaurant in Marylebone, on a nice spring evening. We didn't want to sit outside with the smokers, so we chose to sit inside. What we hadn't expected was to be sat right in a corner in the back—the darkest (and most humid) spot in the restaurant.
With the menu came a spiel of: "We recommend a starter each, and then two or three of the small plates, and then one or two from the big plates. The small plates are just little bites." — I am paraphrasing here, but you get the gist. Without looking at the menu, we already thought that, taking the advice would mean we would end up with way too much food — we've been in similar situations before. Seeing the price of each of these "small" and "big" dishes were, also put us right off. Ultimately, we can always order another dish.
Instead, we opted for a more reasonable selection, at least in our opinion. We started with wild-farmed sourdough, with cultured butter, and smoked Basque sardines with a cherry sauce. I have no idea what wild-farmed sourdough is, nor cultured butter; but it was nice bread with some good butter. The sardines were nicely cured, and the cherries added an enjoyable sweet tang. It wasn't a lot of chow though.
As our intermezzo dish we chose their salad of Provencal asparagus, peas, and broad beans, served with a poached Braddock Whites duck egg. A light and refreshing dish, with the white and green asparagus having just the right amount of crunch.
And finally, as our main we picked the poussin, which was served with an apricot jus. On the side we had a basic green leaf salad. The poussin was perfectly cooked, and easily came off the bone. I've never had chicken and apricot, but thought the combination worked really well. The salad was, well, salad. Flopped out of the bag and dressed with a fairly basic oil and vinegar dressing. Being critical the leaves were too large to eat in a mouthful, so a bit of light chopping by a chef would have improved it; alas.
With our meal, we shared a carafe of Chardonnay, which was perfectly nice. In most circumstances, we would have had a bottle. But they start at £54 here, which is a little over the top.
The food that we had, was delicious. But we really ought to have had a look at the price ranges in the original review, or on the menu before we booked. We didn't think the value-for-money ratio worked out here. I don't think we will be back here, also because it felt a little pretentious. Marylebone has both better and more affordable places to dine in.
London Shell Co.
We walked the last mile to the restaurant on a lovely, warm spring evening. It is situated on the east side of Hampstead Heath, not far from Highgate Cemetery. Nearby are several independent shops.
As the evening was warm and sunny, many people sat outside, but we sat inside, on one side of the little restaurant. On the other side, there was a fish counter with fresh-looking fish and seafood. The back wall had a rack full of bottles of wine to have in or take out. A fridge next to it was for the white and sparkling wines to have in. The atmosphere was very relaxed.
The menu was a blackboard, with numerous tasty-sounding dishes in three different sections: cold plates, hot plates, and sides/desserts. Although nearly all the dishes sounded delicious, we each chose a dressed and undressed oyster to start our meal. But not after we had perused the wines on offer—we selected a Greek Savatiano.
The dressed oyster had a slightly spicy sauce with a nice burn that did not overpower the oyster's flavour. The undressed oyster was fresh and enhanced with a few drops of lemon juice.
After our starters, our mains arrived. My wife had picked a ray wing dressed with salty caper butter, and I had selected the whole plaice with lobster sauce. The lobster sauce alone was to die for—lovely, sweet chunks of lobster meat with a powerful tomato undertone. It went very well with my perfectly cooked fish. The other dishes coming from the kitchen also looked enticing. On the side, we shared some new potatoes.
We don't usually have three courses — two is plenty — but it was a lovely spring evening, and a dessert seemed appropriate. My wife had a slice of a traditional British custard tart topped with a little nutmeg, whereas I had opted for the fresh strawberries served with white chocolate cream. Although white chocolate can be cloying sweet, this wasn't, and therefore a delicious final to our meal whilst sipping an accompanying dessert wine: A nice relaxed meal with fabulous fishy food.
The Cow
We visited The Cow on a warm spring evening and went through a packed bar downstairs to the much quieter upstairs restaurant. This place had been recommended to us, so we were keen to pop along and try it out.
We were welcomed with some lovely bread and butter and had some mackerel pate to share to start with. The pate was nicely flavoured but could have done with being served with more bread, as there was too much pate, for the amount of bread, even if we loaded it on.
I chose the Monkfish, which was well seasoned and had its defining chewy bite. The vegetables that came with it added flavour, as did the tomato. What let the dish down was the watery sauce underneath it.
My wife selected the cuttlefish with peas. The cuttlefish with the peas and sauce was pleasant. The slice of sourdough helped up mopping the flavourful sauce as well, although it did make the dish a little soggy.
When we left, the downstairs area was even busier, with no place to even stand. Overall, whilst it is clearly a local favourite, we found it a bit overhyped, and we will probably not go back.
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