The Porter's Table

The Porter's Table is part of the massive new Guinness Open Gate London development, which features a brewery and tour, a beer garden, and several restaurants. They have a different approach to the original Open Gate in Dublin, where they mostly try out new beers on unsuspecting punters.

Where Gilroy's Loft specialises in seafood, The Porter's Table is focussed on grilling vegetables, fish, and meat. And of course there is a fair amount of different beers to sample as well.

After finding the restaurant, we soon got ourselves one of those while looking over the menu.

We originally only chose the frickels as our starter (beer-batter deep-friend cornichons), but after realising that we didn't have any vegetables with our mains, we decided to add the seasonal Brussels sprouts. When these came (after the frickels, and before the mains), we were glad that we did. They were prepared with beetroot and orange, which made for a delightful combination.

For her main, my wife had the butcher's skewer; lovely cubes of rib-eye, marinated, and grilled on a skewer with red peppers, tomatoes, and red onion slices. I had the pork chop, which came with half a roasted bulb of garlic, cut through horizontally. I enjoyed prising the sweet roasted cloves of garlic flesh out of the papery skin. My meal was seasoned, and nicely moist. We ordered some chips on the side, which were crisp and fluffy. The serving of mayonnaise was too small, but I nearly always find that his the case.

The food was nice, but the service was quite haphazard. Orders went slightly wrong, and were offered food that we hadn't ordered — nor did the tables next to us.

We'll likely return to the Open Gate, but probably to try Gilroy's Loft (the seafood restaurant), or the beer garden with food truck later in the year when the weather is much improved.

Frickles

Seasonal Brussels Sprouts

Pork Chop

Butcher's Skewer

Fries