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.
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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.
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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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Kudu
We went to Kudu, a restaurant offering a menu inspired by South African Braai on a wet Halloween. Let me start by saying, that whilst there were vegetarian items on the menu, this is very much not a restaurant for those who enjoy a meat free cuisine.
We started our meal with a delicious tin of freshly baked bread, about the size of a large American muffin, helpfully portioned into four pieces. This was accompanied by a dish of a very tasty melted butter, featuring bits of bacon for the bread to be dipped into. This flavoursome starter set the tone for the mains.
We enjoyed a spatchcock poussin which was coated in something slightly crunchy, salty, spicy — and delicious. The poussin was moist and tender and came off the bone very easily. Alongside this we had the lamb, which came on the bone, and partly sliced. This too had some sort of marinade or spicing applied, and was also tasty. If I'm being very critical, perhaps the fat could have been rendered a little more. We also had with our mains a dish of roasted carrots draped in a curry-ish, sauce, and in some ways I wish I'd had two of those. But alas with all the meat, there really was no room.
From our high table seat we could see across about half the restaurant, which was busy. We noticed that many diners were unable to finish their food, so there were many "doggy bags" of leftovers being packaged up. We didn't need to do a takeaway, but this is only because we were more restrained on the side dishes.
We'd go to Kudu again, but next time I'd probably have the spatchcock chicken between two, and a few of the sides and snack dishes to go with it.
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Theo Randall
You can find Theo Randall on the ground floor of the posh Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane. The restaurant itself is elegant, but not pretentious. On Friday evening there is live music. We were seated at the other end of the spacious dining room, which meant being able to enjoy both the music and having a chat.
Besides their à la carte menu, they also have a monthly "regional tasting menu" consisting of five courses, where three of them are paired with wine. We opted for this tasting menu, which in October was from Umbria.
We started our "journey" with an Umbria cocktail, which was fruity with a slice of dried strawberry as a decoration. With this, we were enjoying some focaccia and a bruschetta, which was topped with a flavourful roasted tomato salsa.
Our first course, the Antipasto, consisted of beef carpaccio with marinated artichokes and pecorino cheese. Strangozzi (think square cut wheat spaghetti), serviced with Italian sausage and a white wine and black truffle creamed was the Primo course. The pasta had a good bite to it, and the sausage was nicely cubed. The sauce bound everything together.
Our Secondo, or "meat" course, was roasted guinea fowl breasts with pancetta and a sweet wine. It was served with squash purée under the crisp skin, and laid on a bed of lentils and some braised greens. The guinea fowl was still moist, and the skin crisp. The textures worked very well together.
We finished the evening with Dolce, a chocolate and hazelnut cake with a Vin Santo gelato. The cake was rich and on the denser side, but the ice cream offset that. We were a bit cheeky, and enjoyed a glass of dessert wine as well with this final course.
I believe the menu was good value, as the food was very tasty. The matching wines accompanied the dishes well. The dishes themselves were well presented, well cooked, and the whole meal was just the right amount. Perhaps not a restaurant to go to on a weekly basis, but if you have something to celebrate, or perhaps a fancier date night, it's a great spot, close to the centre of London.
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