One Blenheim Terrace

I am thrilled this new restaurant has opened up in my neighbourhood but frankly I'd travel to eat here. I have been twice and already looking forward to the next visit. The food is top notch, the service easily matches it – the maitre d' is excellent, the decor is spot on too. The only worrying thing is that by posting this review – will I be able to get a table next time I want to go!

I went to One Blenheim Terrace on Saturday night with my boyfriend. We had a wonderful evening!! The restaurant was full and had a great atmosphere, very lively, just what you want on a saturday night!

The manager came over with the menus and explained any queries we had about the menu and the wine waiter helped us to chose the perfect bottle to accompany our meal. Even though the restaurant was full the staff still had plenty of time for us and nothing seemed to be too much trouble for them.

The food was superb! I had the salmon to start which was presented beautifully and the combination of flavours was amazing! For main i had the duck which again was lovely and we had a selection of sides, which i have since found out changes on a daily basis. The menu is small but perfectly formed and I cant wait to go back to try some more!

My partner and I are always looking to try new places and One Blenheim Terrace is a short walk from Queens Park, so we thought we'd go along and see if the food was as good as the pictures looked.

Whilst we were waiting for our table to be prepared we sat at the bar and had some rather unusual popcorn – I'm a big lobster fan, my partner isn't, but tried it anyway. I loved it, he preferred the black pepper and goats cheese. It was a fairly short wait, not long at all really.

I had smoked Salmon to start – which was amazing. It came out in a smoke filled klosh which I thought was going to be over powering but was divine, it gave an amazing oaky smell. Very theatrical and dramatic. My partner had the ‘Baked Potato’ which The Times had tweeted about. The potato consommé came out in a miniature glass tea pot which was quite quirky.

I normally opt for fish dishes for mains but decided to try something different and had the duck a l'orange. Wonderfully rich, well rounded flavours without the sugary taste you sometimes get, it really was done to perfection. My partner had liver and onions – what can I say opposites attract – well presented, smelt nice, but not enough to tempt me away from the duck.

Dessert really was something else – we both had the cucumber sandwich – what a delight! I'm not quite sure how to describe it… the cucumber sorbet was heavenly and the rest merely framed it, beautifully so I might add. I decided to go for this as I am a big fan of gin and they go perfectly together. My partner was impressed at the beer menu.

Overall I thought the staff were friendly enough and efficient. I don't like it when they are in your face and asking you if you are enjoying your meal after every bite so for the us the balance was just right – they weren't intrusive and we didn't have to wait for anything.

Price wise we thought it was good. We left feeling full and rather happy. We'd definitely go back and try more.

At last a decent local restaurant we thought – how wrong could you be!

We were attracted to try One Blenheim Terrace by the fact that it was local; it had a good chef and also provided an attractive Menu du Jour. We arrived at 7.00pm to an empty restaurant but were shown to a table and pre-dinner drinks were served. The menu and wine list were then presented to us, but it was the a la carte, so I asked for the Menu du Jour. That seemed to cause a problem though nothing was said to us, then the menu was brought and weirdly the wine list was taken away! However, we did manage to get the list returned and ordered a bottle of wine.

There was a choice of two starters, gnocchi with basil and tomato sauce and endive salad with pear and walnuts followed by either sea bass or chicken breast with girolles. We both ordered the salad followed by chicken. Our cutlery arrived for our starter, a fork and a spoon (surely for the gnocchi); the salad was ok but not exactly inspiring and would have benefitted from some dressing.

Then a peculiar thing happened, we were served risotto with a chicken skin crisp for our main! The gentleman in charge did ask whether everything was ok (I did eat the risotto and it was very good, but my husband barely touched his) and my husband said he was a little surprised to be served risotto as he had ordered chicken breast.

We were then told how they were not in fact serving the Menu du Jour, to which my husband suggested that perhaps we could have been told that in the first place; then we were offered a reduction in our bill and a glass of Prosecco, both of which we declined. That was another interesting idea we had witnessed; what appeared to be a regular ordered a Kir Royale, when she tasted it she queried whether it was ok only to be told “Ah! We are just experimenting with Prosecco”!

We wish Ed Shearf all the best with his badly-needed restaurant in this area, but honesty really is the best policy in restaurants!