North Road

Impressive attention to detail. It is amazing houw many things you can do with beetroot. The service is attentive and the decor pleasant. However the restaurant lacks a bit in atmosphere and it was very empty on a lunchtime when all the other venues nearby were doing roaring trade. The nordic inspired menu is clearly a breath of fresh air and speaks to those who are looking for more daring flavours and coupling of ingredients. Overall a very enjoyable experience.

We have eaten here three times over the last 6 months. We were very pleased to find another Nordic kitchen (very much enjoying Texture), but a bit closer to home.

We've had a mixed experience with our meals. Presentation has been consistently excellent, and we've eaten some wonderfully cooked / tasty duck, veal tartar and sweetbreads. However, the house style is to be a bit different, sometimes using strong and unusual flavours (eg liquorice, burnt hay). Hence, some dishes will generate a “marmite effect” – you'll either love or hate them. We've had some fantastic quality venison, beautifully cooked, but completely over powered by the taste of burnt hay. A great idea, but I wanted to taste the venison. We have also been served very good quality, but close to raw sushi style, squid and scallops, which will not suit everyone.

Its really great to have somewhere exploring new ideas and flavours, but to be honest we've found that their less adventurous dishes hit the mark far better than the more original ones. Eg the in-house made butter simply seemed unecessary – just give me some echire.

Service was good, professional and friendly, and has clearly settled down since the Nov opening (given comments in some older reviews).

We liked the comfortable and modern interior design. Not at all Nordic stark / ultilitarian.

North Rd is very good value given the quality of ingredients and originality – having paid average £64 for 2, inc service, ex all drinks – especially when they get it right. However, I think they need to improve their hit vs miss ratio, perhaps by toning down some of the flavours.

I would definitely recommend giving North Rd a try, but remember the “marmite effect”.

Outstanding food and venue, interesting wine list too, absolutely coming back very soon

We had a first bad experience (fish and chicken skins oily and salty, pickled quail eggs rather tart, and veal so tough it was not easy to chew), and a better experience although the predominant taste of the food was ‘hickory smoke’ including the dessert. If this is what all the food critiques have been raving about, then they wouldn't be so hard to please. If this is what Scandinavian food is about, then it would be rather disappointing. Service was very average, and the decor was rather cold and impersonal.

I went up to London from Chichester to meet up with an old friend for lunch. She used to live in the area and she suggested the recently opened North Road Restaurant. It is so easy when one goes to London to end up in some bad tourist trap, and as the restaurant is conveniently located close to Farringdon Tube and Thameslink station, I was game and not disappointed!

Arriving at the restaurant, we were received by the hostess taking our coats. We then ordered a glass of sparkling wine in the bar and had a look at the restaurant.
From the bar there is a window to the kitchen that features equipment that looks state of the art to my catering wise untrained eye. One of the people there proudly told that the fridges are very small since everything bought in fresh every day.

Anyway we got seated in the restaurant and I will describe it as contemporary and bright, yet it has a warm and welcoming feeling to it. We then got the menu from which we both chose the set lunch menu and wine list and soon after a couple of nice bread rolls arrived.

For starters I choose a lobster consommé made from “lobster, the whole lobster and nothing but the whole lobster”, I think, and it was deep flavoured, wholesome and divine tasting. Just what one needed on a cold November day! My friend chose braised ox cheeks and I heard nothing but praise from her.

From the menu I chose Beef rolled in burnt hay (Not a printing error!) but the restaurant could not get beef of satisfying quality so I was told it would be venison instead. Added bonus for me and it was just so tender and the hay complemented the meat unexpectedly well. The dish was served with differently prepared beetroots. Again very tasty, but a few new potatoes, some sort of potato dish or perhaps a mash of root vegetables would have balanced the dish better in my opinion.
The other side of the tables had Dorset Brill & stewed salsify to her absolute satisfaction. She actually told the waiter how perfectly cooked it was!

Talking about the waiters, I’m impressed because they manage to be there when needed. For example didn’t we need to pour our wine a single time or the plates were removed as soon as we finished, but not before. Also they were helpful and polite. I think we all have experienced the opposite more than once in London! Finally I will like to mention that the food came at ok intervals.

We both opted for bread and butter pudding for our last course. Tasty but to my taste it could have been a bit sweeter and perhaps a bit more but ok I’m a pudding person, I must confess.

As for wine we pushed the boat out and had a divine pinot noir wine. It matched the food very well, but it would have been better if it had been opened a little in advance, decanted or poured through one of these contraptions that give a bit of oxygen to the wine. Once it had opened up it was perfect.
To accompany the pudding we got a glass of Austrian??? Wine, that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of! Lovely though!

Value for money: Very good! For example the lunch menu as we had is 20 pound per person. Personally I have tried to pay more than the double for less in other places.

For me the North Road Restaurant is a young beauty with a few small beauty spots and I do hope they can make it a success! I will be back!

Opened Monday 15th November, so clearly will take a while to settle down.

The venue is far more beautiful than the photos on the website would suggest, it is a very comfortable and inviting place to be – minimalist without being austere.

Appetisers were a mix of Quail egg's (beautiful), Pork scratching (great) and crispy fish skin (still with the scales on which was slightly offputting).

The service was keen and attentive, although there were a few green moments – our bread was forgotten, our side plates were removed then reinstated (without butter knives). More worryingly, the serving staff's knowledge of the ingredients wasn't sufficient to do justice to a kitchen that revels in unusual and unconventional treatments. We were given brown butter and informed it was made on the premises. Unfortunately we weren't furnished with an explanation of how it was made and from what.

Starters were hit and miss. Presentation was excellent. Oxcheeks with pear was soft, tasty and tender although the pear was thin and lacked crunch or bite. The £15 lobster starter was disappointing – the semi-raw lobster was a revelation in sticky luxury, but its delicate taste subsumed by a garnish of fresh herbs, the dill overpowering everything.

Mains followed this continuing theme of a talented and skilled kitchen still working out how to make the menu work for every couvert. Monkfish with pickled clams and clam sauce should have been a triumph. The fish was cooked to perfection, succulent, moist and fresh. The picked clams were also an unusual delight, vinegary without being overpowering. However, the clam sauce – served as foam, was salty to the point that we almost sent the dish back. It did just about work, but many other people would have undoubtedly returned it uneaten.

The venison with beetroot and burnt hay is a daring and exceptional dish selection, but because of its unconventionality it succeeds or fails on every execution. Mine was not a success, the dark burnt hay powder in the deep red sauce overpowered even the bold beetroot flavour. It should have been a suggestion; instead it was a shout. The venison – perfectly cooked again – was somewhere in there, but the warring reds and blacks never let its flavour through the door.

For desert, our waiter had tried little on offer and the menu lacked description. We took a punt on the Jerusalem artichoke, sunflower seeds, mousse and marzipan. It was served as a artichoke ice-cream, covered in mousse with flecks of marzipan. It lacked sweetness and left us feeling a little disappointed.

North Road is a restaurant that promises a great deal yet still has so much to deliver if it wants to compete as a destination restaurant in Farringdon against neighbours such as Bistro Bruno Loubet and Portal.

Had a great meal with 6 friends, the tasting menu was spot on with attentive service, presentation was faultless, as was the attention to detail. Will def be coming again

Atmosphere: It was empty except for 3 other small tables so hard to rate. The design is warm and has some nice Scandinavian design touches.

Service: Competent and attentive

Food: Its Scandinavian so you know what to expect. Presentation was excellent. We had the tasting menu. It looks inventive and inviting on the menu but the Lobster course was way over salty and the venison rolled in burnt hay was bland and really just tasted of beetroot which it was paired with. The burnt hay just created an unpleasant texture in the mouth.

Overall: We wanted to like it. Could have just been the night but we saw 2 other tables making similar comments to the front of house. This type of restaurant really has to become a destination for foodies or appeal to mass market. We don't think its going to do either.

Having eaten at Fig in Barnsbury on a regular basis for a couple of years now – and truly loved it – it was time to check out the Danish chef’s new venue, North Road, in buzzing Clerkenwell. I was gobsmacked! The venue that used to be the doll and uninspiring “The Clerkenwell” has undertaken a top to toe refurbishment. Beautiful, stylish, chic and yet so warmly decorated that you wish the designer would come home with you and start decorating. Due to my regular appearance at Fig I got a friends & family invite with 50% off before the official opening day, which was a really nice gesture.

This gave me the opportunity to introduce friends to Nordic inspired food and they were all blown away. We went for the tasting menu and though my friends had weird facial expressions regarding the dessert, which was called “flavours of woodland” and thought that this was a little bit out of order, they all thanked me afterwards for being so persuasive. Smoked scallops, cured lobster and vegetables from Kent so beautiful presented and such a thrill followed by venison rolled in burnt hay?!?! Who would have thought of that? Accompanied with smoked bone marrow and beetroot we were in heaven.

One of my friends said: Did the Vikings really do this? Fighting, plundering and raping and then… hey, let’s go eat some venison rolled in hay. The dessert was really really clever. With ingredients such as birch bark, chestnut and wild herbs you would think that it would be quite savoury. Not at all, it was truly delicious. Just as Fig has an interesting variety of wine, so has North Road, just so much more to choose from. Familiar faces amongst the waiters remembering your name without a split second of doubt. I can only say that I wish the team good luck with the new restaurant. I will certainly do what I can to spread the word. Bravo!