The 10 Cases

Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live, breathe and eat in London. The 10 Cases is so good it's practically a public service. Being a West End boy I've grown proficient at seeking out hidden gems in Soho and Covent Garden and The 10 Cases is a worthy addition to that list.

The dark panelled pocket-box of a bistro is appropriately named for it's main draw, the rapidly rolling wine selection; 10 cases of 10 whites and 10 reds, when they're gone, they're gone. We sampled a light and jammy Chinon and a surprisingly good Austrian red. Both, like most of the list, pleasingly priced at £25-£30 and available by glass, bottle or carafe.

We were a bottle to the good before arriving and immediately ploughed into a selection of their excellent small plates. You can go for starters and mains if you fancy, though there are generally only 3 big dishes at any one time. Excellent fresh bread (a £1.50 cover in case that kind of thing annoys) was a great soaker-upper of the reminants of buttery potted crab and a surprising (to us) foie gras en cocotte.

Surprising only if you were expecting foie gras en croute, not having read the menu properly. Envisaging some form of butter pastry and forcefed liver combination, we were disappointed in the way that only the truly gluttonous could be. If you know your bistro dishes then you'd be expecting a pot poached egg in butter on a tiny, perfectly cooked slab of foie. You'd be right, but you probably wouldn't remember quite how wonderful this dish can be, because if you did, you'd be eating it now. Right now. Silk cooked in butter, served with butter…

Steak hache, that bistro stalwart, wouldn't be a bad addition to the menu but other than that, it was pretty near perfect. The only slight fail for me was a deconstructed prawn cocktail. Fresh enough ingredients and the old skool styling delighted my guest but i didn't rate it as anything more than a dull assemblage. Thankfully we finished on an enormous pillowy chocolate mousse meant for sharers. Being one of the few desserts I have in my home cook repertoire I'm not sure it was entirely worth the £9.50 price tag, but as a bittersweet full stop to a sophisticated drinking session it was delicious.

Service was excellent and sealed the deal. The owner and his bar based sidekick made an affable team. Recommendations were spot on, knowledge of their small list couldn't have been better and there was an easy welcome for everyone. Despite being slap bang in the tourist centre of the West End, The 10 Cases manages to be the local bistro you'd want to have on your street corner.

I have now been to 10 Cases twice, once to drink and once to eat and I can honestly say I think this is the most exciting new opening in London for a while. The wine list is a bit of an adventure, even for a wine buff like me, with the highlight for me being a “natural” Chardonnay from the south of France. The food is simple, rustic, comforting – great cheeses and little nibbles for when you're sitting at the bar, and a delicious smoked pork belly for a more serious meal. The team running the place are hugely efficient, welcoming and fun, so you can't help leaving with a big smile on your face.

I wish them the best of luck – wine bars of London, you could learn a lot from these guys!

Delicious beef and excellent wines at reasonable prices. Relaxed style and friendly staff

We found ourselves at The 10 Cases only as the other restaurant that we had booked failed to come through on the reservation and I’d seen this reviewed in the FT and it sounded much more fun anyway. There are rules to making reservations, but they are simple: the restaurant has to honour the booking, and so too does the booker. I am sure that many places overbook, like airlines do, as they believe that there will be a certain number of no-shows.

So when I reconfirmed the other place, I told them that, although the reservation was for four, there would only be three of us. This shouldn’t make any difference to the size of the table but, when I called back to say actually we would be four after all, I was told that I had originally only booked for three and it was impossible to change now. I was even told by the haughty receptionist that she had taken the original reservation, so she knew that I had only asked for three. Whatever: I had used that new fangled interweb thingy to book (and indeed had the email confirmation). So I used the self same digital manner to cancel, not trusting the analogue, and once again getting email confirmation.

The 10 Cases couldn’t have been more different. Having booked on-line, I had a call to confirm and said that, although booked for 10.00pm, we might be late as we were coming post theatre. “No problem”, I was assured “come whenever works”. I immediately had a warm feeling towards the place.

The first thing to note is that the restaurant is small. It has a counter and, this evening, a table of eight and a couple of tables of four. Another of my rules of restaurants is that the biggest table will always make the most noise, unless one of the other tables is a party of French, Italians or Spanish. One of the other smaller tables was French, so the rule applied (although of course it did mean that there were lots of cigarette breaks, when the noise level became bearable again).

Waiting staff are as friendly as the receptionist; ours claimed that our choice of red was her favourite too, and that she’d ordered a case for herself. It is an odd concept only to buy ten cases of any wine then discard them from the list. Why? Yes it is great that you are getting new wines through constantly and yes it means that your overheads are lower as you are not keeping vast quantities in storage, but what happens when the last bottle of the most popular wine has gone? You replace it with something that you think will work, but might prove disastrous. What I would say, however, is that the prices for the wines are ridiculously low (by central London standards): of the still wines, only one crept above the £30 mark, and then only just. And, to be fair, the list has been well thought out: it is short, but has some great wines, with varied styles, from all over the world.

The menus are chalked on a board on the wall, which is fine in itself, although meant that those facing into the room from the banquette couldn’t actually read them. Fortunately, they also put the menu on their website, so a quick look on the iPad showed us what they had. Or actually it didn’t, as they were out of the mushrooms and, inexplicably, the green salad.

What they had left was perfectly adequate, but there was no real sparkle to it. The razor clams were very nice, the lamb cooked well and the chicken perfectly fine, if a little bland.

T10C is the same sort of style as both the Polpo grouping and Duck Soup, but it fails to have the style of the former or the cooking of the latter. Which is a real shame, as it is a super friendly place, with great wines at superb prices (although why spoil it with a cover charge: just charge for the “free” mineral water instead?).

As a follow up to the other reservation, in the cab on the way home I picked up a message from the other restaurant wanting to know if I still wanted my table. Maybe the interweb isn’t all that it is cracked up to be, although I am pretty sure that it will catch on.

I can think of nowhere in central London I would rather have a glass of wine sitting at the bar talking to a friend or indeed the barman. A wonderfully relaxed, European atmosphere with good portions of tasty, not over-complicated food. I love the concept and the wine list is invigorating.

We visited this bar/restaurant after reading about it on this web site, at about 7pm on Saturday evening, and although it was very quiet in there, we were told we would have to vacate the table by 8.30 (no problem as we only wanted one course and wine). The fish – although promised filleted -was not and I spent the whole meal removing bones , as did my companion with hers. We did point this out to the waiter who merely agreed with us ! The wine was pleasant however the waitress tried to take it away whilst there was still half left in the bottle! Oh – and if you have the green salad it is literally only lettuce leaves ! The atmosphere is pleasant however, but sadly I won't be rushing back,

We had an excellent meal here. The restaurant is simply decorated, with a clean french bistro style. There is a lively and fun atmosphere. The food was delicious- in particular the grilled octopus, stuffed chicken and the apple tart, but all the menu was excellent. There is an interesting and varied wine list, all reasonably priced. The staff are extremely friendly, with an excellent knowledge of the menu and efficient service. Tables are cosy as the floor space is limited but this serves to create a vibrant atmosphere. It is also fun to enjoy drinks and small plates of food at the bar, where there is a relaxed vibe. This was an excellent dinner.