Pyrá
Pyrá is a recent addition to the line-up of restaurants on Lonsdale Road. Their menu is on the shorter side, and they also cater for parties. When we rocked up, there was a wedding reception going on in their loft. Pyrá has a menu with both Greek and Spanish influences, a more unusual combination, but one which on reading appeared to work well. We shared a portion of the chorizo and manchego croquettes. These were a little spicy and salty, including some chunky bits of manchego.
For our main courses, I picked the deconstructed lamb gyros, which came served with fluffy flatbreads, chips, a chilli dip, tzatziki, and an onion and tomato salad. My wife chose the roasted Merton sole, with saffron rice, and oyster mushrooms. It came served whole, with a dressing of some lemon and roasted garlic. However, service was slow, with a noticeable wait until the mains showed up, and then the mains not being served together. My wife's sole eventually appeared almost half an hour after the gyros. This may have been due to the large party upstairs, but no warning was given of a possible delay, and no apology was forthcoming either. Overall, this wasn't the most positive.
The food (when it came) was nice and well cooked, and the portions were fairly generous, which meant that we skipped dessert.
We enjoyed Pyrá, but the long wait in between our main dishes being served let them down, and would probably mean it was not our first choice in Queens Park for a revisit.
The Salusbury
The Salusbury Pub has been a feature of Queen's Park for as long as we have lived in the area. They recently had a refurbishment, and as we had never eaten there, we decided to give it a try.
We were on the earlier side, and it was quiet when we arrived.
For our starters, my wife ordered the Parmesan Churros. Instead of them being sweet as you'd expect in their dessert form, they were fluffy, light, and savoury, with delightful Parmesan twang. I had a single oyster, which was served in a cucumber and jalapeño "hot" sauce. It was only slightly spicy, and didn't overpower the flavour of the oyster itself.
As her main, my wife chose the Roast Venison. It was served with caramelised onions, some chard, and a jus with cranberries to tie the whole meal together. The venison itself was perfectly cooked, and still pink on the inside. For my main course, I selected the Somerset Saxon chicken, served with herb gnocchi and girolle mushrooms. The chicken was well cooked, and had a well-seasoned and crispy skin, while the meat was soft and moist. The gnocchi were light, with the herbs adding some flavour. The girolles and sauce made it all work better.
We were still a little peckish, and decided to share a dessert. The menu had an "apple crumble". However, it wasn't an actual crumble, but rather a soufflé with apple flavour, and some crumbs to add some texture. Some vanilla ice cream cooled it down a little.
The courses at the Salusbury were excellent, and we should really have tried going much sooner. As it's pretty close by I am sure we will return.
Ottolenghi
Ottolenghi has several restaurants in London, but we enjoyed dinner in their Hampstead venue on a cheeky Monday to celebrate.
The menu doesn't have starters or mains, but only nibbles and sharing dishes, which was made abundantly clear by our waiter. However, there is a selection of cold and warm sharing dishes which by necessity are served in two waves: the cold ones, and the warm ones — nicely separating them in starters and main courses. Did I mention everything is meant to share?
We started our meal with a crisp glass of pét-nat, a naturally sparkling wine, while munching on za'atar pita chips with a yoghurt and red chilli dip.
As our starter (sorry, cold sharing dish), we chose the burrata with marinated mandarins. The freshness of the mandarins worked well with the burrata, and the rocket added some extra pepperiness.
We picked our mains as non-sharing, but ended up sharing a fair bit anyway. My wife picked the Adana lamb kebabs with babaganoush and picked onions. These were nicely spiced, with the babaganoush adding the necessary moisture. I selected the crispy chicken 'chop', which was served with a tahini and walnut sauce. The chicken 'chop' had a nice crispy skin, and the sauce was excellent. The portion size of the chicken dish was somewhat larger than the lamb kebabs.
With our mains we enjoyed a lovely bottle of red wine, a Garnacha from Navarra. At the end, we went back and forth about ordering pudding. We ended up settling on sharing a Bakewell tart. With crispy edges, a nicely sour filling, and some pistachio nuts sprinkled on top.
We enjoyed Ottolenghi, but we're not in agreement on the ambience. Although we both found it relaxed and welcoming, I also found it a little pretentious. Particularly the "cold and warm sharing dishes" shtick instead of the starters and mains they would have been in other restaurants. All of the dishes were really tasty, well presented, and the staff were great. We would return.
Casa Felicia
Casa Felicia is close to home, and sits on a stretch near Queen's Park tube station with many other restaurants. It has recently opened, but it was full on this drizzly evening. Bookings are definitely required.
The menu isn't very extensive. A few starters and pasta dishes, which are supplemented by a few special "secondi" from a black board menu. The menu however, was entirely in Italian, which required a translation service to navigate. A short description under each of the titles would have really helped, as would the menu being printed in a darker ink (or the lighting turned up a little). Clearly we're old, but the menu wasn't that easy to read, and we noticed a few fellow patrons using their phone torches to see it properly
As our starters we shared the Salame Napoli, thicker cut slices of slightly peppery salami, and the Salsiccia & Friarielli, a deliciously spiced sliced sausage with a jus, and served with sprouting broccoli.
For our mains my wife chose the pappardelle ragu — pasta in the shape of butter flies with a spiced ragu, served with chives and cheese shavings. I picked from their blackboard menu a pork chop, covered in ham, and smothered in a tonne of cheese. It was just on the "too much" side of a meal, and hence, we decided not to have pudding as well.
We enjoyed Casa Felicia. There is good food, and a good buzz. It also helps that it is a fairly short walk from home. Although it's not quite as good as Ida, I think we would need little persuasion to return.
Rockwell
Rockwell is a bar/restaurant on the ground floor of the Trafalgar St. James hotel. They specialise in small plates, and also have some Wagyu beef dishes on their menu. The recommendation was "two to three plates each". For once, we followed this, and it was spot on.
We selected six dishes between the two of us. The Ibérico ham croquetas, which were served with a saffron sauce and some pecorino shavings, showed up first. These were served hot with the ham joined by a flavourful cheese sauce within the croquette, covered by a thin, crisp shell. At the same time we also received the gnocchi with beetroot. These were adorned with hazelnuts, beetroot cream, and rainbow chard. The flavours worked well together, and the sauce was scrumptious. The fried potato terrine with aioli were soft and butter on the inside, with nice crisp edges which added a lovely texture.
A little later the other three courses turned up. The zucchini fritti were well-made, but were a little dry and could have done with a sauce. As my main, I chose the crispy sea bass with Salsa Verde. The skin was crisp, the fish flaky and moist, and the Salsa Verde added a little acidity. My wife preferred the Wagyu rosemary grilled bavette steak. Unfortunately, that was the real disappointment of the meal. It was dry, and, given it was allegedly Wagyu, criminally tough. It did have an interesting marinade, but this overwhelmed the flavour of the beef. If you're serving Wagyu, the flavour and texture of the meat itself should be the highlight, but I think the chef missed that memo.
The wines start a bit on the expensive side, so instead we had a carafe of a tasty Prunus Dão Tinto from Portugal. Curiously, this was presented by pouring 500ml out of a bottle into a carafe at our table, but the bottle itself did not appear to be listed on the wine list.
Just like at Theo Randall a few weeks ago, on Friday evening there is entertainment. This time, in the form of a jazz singer, who proceeded to “reinterpret” aka massacre well known tunes, by artists including Michael Jackson, Bryan Adams and Maroon 5. However, unlike at Theo's, the music was at a conversation stifling level. It also involved the singer walking around the restaurant. As an observation, it was probably not entirely the singer's fault as the restaurant generally had terrible acoustics. It was quite difficult to hear our conversation over the table before the music started.
Rockwell was an intriguing experience. The food was generally good, but the music too loud, and the criminal treatment of the Wagyu beef a let-down.
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