Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental

The best part of the menu are the high-end burgers. This is not a full fledged restaurant offering but rather a high-end gourmet bar offering. As such not a bad place to drop in and enjoy a drink and some food at their bar

Nice busy, welcoming Bar & Restaurant with very good Burgers and above average food.
Very good for quick lunches as well.
Good service.

Currently one of the most fun and happening brasseries in town, it has a unique ambience that exudes easy-going Knightsbridge class. The foie gras burger (and fries) is right up there with the best in town. Lots of fun.

This has become one of our favourite weekend lunch haunts. The menu (which is changed periodically) always has several dishes which are both original and delicious; one is spoiled for choice, The sausages are extremely good value; try the Boudin Blanc and the Merguez. The chicken and duck exceptionally good and the burgers great. Also a good selection of meats and fish, so I often have trouble choosing. Try the truffled mash, a dish to die for. As several people have noted, it's also the buzz which makes it special. The wine list is extensive, with bottles ranging from quite reasonable to ridiculously pricey; the sommeliers are very knowledgable and will always steer you to a proper choice for your budget. We have tried Dinners upstairs and agree that the quality there is outstanding, but it is a limited choice and the prices might require a second mortgage.

Having heard about the “best burgers in London” it was only a matter of time before he managed to persuade me that we should try out Bar Boulud. Saturday 2pm for late lunch was the eventual date and we were joined by another couple.

The place was very buzzy and thanks to all of the twists and turns of the underground venue, it wasn't overwhelmining loud. An interesting mix of families, couples, ladies who lunch and those clearly suffering from shopping-induced exhaustion.

Everything on the menu looked appealling but we settled on a selection of the sausages to start. All unique yet delicately flavoured and succulent this was a perfect way to get the taste buds warmed up. Burgers all round for the main course – i tried the piggy burger. This was very good although i was slightly disappointed by the lack of “kick” from the chilli mayo (although when asked they were able to provide some fresh chopped chillis on the side which was the perfect accompaniment).

Unfortunately both of the other couple we were with were taken ill with food poisoning after lunch which was a real shame as i really thought we had found a perfect weekend lunch spot. Having said that as neither my partner or i were ill i'm be willing to give it a second chance.

According to my non-city dwelling Mum there can’t be a recession if a restaurant is packed on a Monday night. I see her point but don’t necessarily agree. To me there are two other possibilities. 1) said restaurant is very good and therefore merits being busy or 2) you are round the corner from the hedge fund Mecca that is Berkeley Square home to bankers who aren't traditionally stereotyped as poor. Or it could be a combination of both. Let’s see…

Upon entering we were greeted by not one smiling member of staff, not two, or even three but FIVE people. Quite the welcoming committee. Bar Boulud itself was loud, very loud indeed, mainly due to the quantity of people crammed into the bar area. If a quiet romantic dinner is your agenda either avoid or make sure you get a table in the back room I reckon. It’s also pretty male dominated but for some reason I’ve never found that to be a problem….

I had been wanting to try Bar Boulud for ages having devoured one of my top 5 meals of all time in Boulud's eponymous restaurant Daniel in New York in late 2010 but for some reason just hadn't got round to it. Weird considering I had been so excited at the idea of Daniel Boulud's first London outpost but que sera. Decor wise, I loved the wine themed art; stained glass windows in the shape of wine glasses and literal wine stains on blotting paper and the layout of the restaurant stops it feeling too huge and impersonal for such a large number of covers.

Bar Boulud’s menu is constructed in quite a hotch potch kind of way where sometimes the price seems to be the only way of determining if something is an entrée or a main course- although even this doesn’t necessarily follow. There is also a very wide selection of food on offer, do they specialise in sausages of which there are many options? or burgers? or seafood? or charcuterie? Its a minefield but who cares, its all good. Due to this we ended up ordering quite a lot of food. Most of it pig based.

As a kind of pre-starter or “Little Bite” as they call them, we ordered the Croustillants de Porc- essentially pork scratchings, ears and some roasted crispy pork belly. The pork scratchings had a five spice/star anise type dusting which was much tastier than I had expected it to be.

We followed this with a large mixed charcuterie platter consisting of “Pâté grand-mère”(a smooth pâté of chicken liver & pork flavoured with cognac), “Pâté grand-père” (a more coarse pâté including foie gras, truffle juice and port)some jambon de Paris and some other sliced meaty bits and bobs and tiny little onions and cornichons. My dad deemed the ham to be the best he had ever tasted and the Pâté grand-père to be excellent which is no slight praise at all coming from a man who spends hours smoking and shooting things (not in that order) and making various pies and terrines.

I had the “Piggie Burger” as my main and never was a dish more accurately named. Of course two previous courses of pig would be enough for a normal mortal but no, I couldn’t resist the charms of a burger offering a topping of bbq pulled pork. The burger was excellent on its own, nice and pink inside and oozing greasy loveliness. The cheddar topped bun made a nice change to the recent rash of brioche burger buns (not that a brioche doesn't have a valid place in burgerdom). In all honesty I wasn't getting much flavour in the “green chilli mayonnaise” but this didn't bother me as personally the highlight ingredient was always going to be the pulled pork. Shiny and rich with tangy barbecue sauce, the pork melted in the mouth and would have slid straight off the burger if not secured with a wooden stake.

Despite being a wildly inappropriate side order to have with a burger, I just had to try the truffled mash which at £4.25 seemed like a pretty good deal. It tasted sublime. Nice and truffly and clearly the chef had been following the cardiac arrest inducing 50% potato vs. 50% butter/cream rule judging by the way it slid from its mini pan in a neat dollop on my plate.

Having protested that I couldn’t possibly fit another mouthful in (and in all honesty probably shouldn’t have) I fell foul of the temptations of the Coupe Peppermint. What was described as a flourless sponge was heavier than the description suggests and essentially a very rich dense chocolate brownie. Don't take that as a moan however as it was deliciously moist and the dark chocolate hot sauce and mint choc icecream were beautiful. Although chocolate based, it was one of the more unusual chocolate desserts that I have eaten recently. It was also the first time in years that I have breached my (admittedly very weird and utterly unexplainable) rule of never mixing hot and cold foods together – call me a freak but normally I hate it.

I really, really wanted to try the madeleines and macarons but even I have some limits to gluttony unfortunately.

There was an excellent wine list at Bar Boulud but I'm afraid all I can remember is lashings and lashings of pig. It was nice wine though and went well with pig…

Ultimately, if you cook me a meal that involves pig, foie gras, truffles and peppermint chocolate I’m going to be hard pushed not to be happy about it (unless you mix them all together in one dish, that would be just horrid). Would I go back? Yes. Especially as they do a prix fixe menu for £23 for 3 courses at lunch and early doors every day.

So in summary and back to my two options from the opening, was it so busy because its good or because of the bankers? A bit of both I guess but definitely more of the former, maybe those bankers just have good taste!

PS Did I mention that they serve pig?

Visit: Jan 2012

Dinner at a restaurant in a hotel in Knightsbridge? I expect Russian hookers, Eurotrash/Arabian bling and poor food. Bar Boulod proves me wrong. It doesn't start off brilliantly: they refuse to move our booking from a 7-9.30pm slot to a 7.30-9.30pm slot (yes indeed, the end time is the same); first impression is a bit ‘New York brasserie just dragged out of the 90s’; our maitre d' insists on loading up our bar drinks onto a tray only to lead us to a table literally 2 steps away. But from there on we have a brilliant night. We have a great banquette table in the middle of the room. The menu is long, meat heavy and I want almost everything on it. We settle on a shared charcuterie board (great pates and hams), a beautiful crispy pork belly and a forgettable tapenade. Bonus points to the bread lady who kept us topped up unobtrusively. Although the menu has more appealing things on offer I plump for the Piggy Burger for the main thanks to a recommendation. There's a touch of Bodeans to the pulled pork but overall it's a gourmet piece of cooking: a dish with beautiful flavours which just happens to be in burger format. Finally we argued over who had the best dessert (not the souffle but the vanilla cake, peppermint cup and 3 choc cake were all worthy contenders). Service was impeccable with our friendly waitress on hand at just the right moments and invisible the rest of the time. We spent around £70 a head which was good value (drinks/starter­/main/dessert/macaroons/wine/service), but could easily have spent more. Be warned, the wine list abounds with bottles in the thousands (but we managed to find the one at £22.50!). I would happily return here to try the more traditional menu fayre and from the clientele (the be-suited and be-tweeded old school set) I'd guess this a favourite for a lot of people. Not a hooker in sight.

Wonderful bistro feel, a place where you can be as formal as you like with the gorgeously dim lighting on one end and foie gras or dress down casual with finger licking delicious burgers. Wonderful overall experience… having tried the braised beef (slow cooked for 6 hours) with a caramelized onion topping accompanied by bechemel sauce and sauteed veggies. The foie gras warm starter salad with egg was to die for, although can't say too much about the cold lamb starter. Overshadowed by Heston's Dinner, this Mandarin Oriental bistro is definitely worth a try and one I will be coming back to. Recommended. Sehar 30, London (ex-New Yorker)

The Arancini of snails are a joke: excellent rice balls but no presence or taste of snails whatsoever. The Yankie burger was overdone but still the cheese on the top not melted at all. Excellent French fries. Kind and attentive service. The restaurant is by far too noisy and definitely does not deserve another visit.

I heart Bar Boulud!

I have been a couple of times and completely forgot to review…my most recent visit I had the Birthday Burger which was to die for…simply amazing…so much so that I ate it so slowy to savour every part of it!

The service has now been awarded with Best Front of House and they really do look after you…I can honestly say I haven't had a bad experience yet…I'm offered a newspaper if dining alone…drinks are never left empty for too long etc.

Its such a fab place to have lunch…you can almost hear certain tables making money as they eat…really great vibe about the restaurant