Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley

At MW, there's very little to fault but there's equally nothing that stands out enough to wax lyrical about. It is as you'd expect; refined and classic. Dishes come and go, everything brings a pleasing smile to your face but nothing dazzled my taste buds in the same way it did at Philip Howard's Square. Don't get me wrong, your not going to go home disappointed and there is the memory of that quirky dessert of horlicks ice cream, whisky foam and honey jelly which you were so sure wouldn't work, but did. It just wasn't the all singing all dancing tasting menu I had hoped for.

Let me get my only issue with this place out of the way upfront – I could not fault the food on any level other than to say that for me it simply doesn't life up to its hype and more importantly I find many dishes to convolutet with too many flavurs/things happening on a single plate. It might sound like being picky but for what you pay at such a top-end restaurant it just left me feeling slightly underwhelmed

This was my first visit to Marcus Wareing, taking my mum for her birthday.

It’s really nice, but ultimately I preferred Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital road as that just seems to do the really high end fine dining experience a little better; the service is smoother, the food nicer and the décor better in Chelsea than in Knightsbridge.

You’ll either love or hate the décor at Marcus Wareing – I didn’t like it much at all. Its gloomy in the extreme, everything is heavy, dark purple, subdued lighting, leather, velvet etc – if Morticia Adams opened a high end brothel I’d imaging it would look something like this inside (not that I have experience in the matter of brothels!). Atmosphere is pleasant though, lots of buzz rather than noise, tables a decent distance apart, etc.

Service is generally good, though there is a slight air of condescension that can occasionally creep into it, but everything happens smoothly, with no hold ups, no mistakes, no awkward waits etc.

The food is generally a high standard, though the one complaint I’d have was that nothing that was supposed to be hot was hot when it arrived, in fact it was barely warm; yes it was all presented perfectly but I wish they’d taken just a bit less time plating up and instead considered getting it out whilst it was a bit hotter. I started (after the usual pre starters, lots of lovely bread – I can definitely recommend the potato and honey – etc) with salmon ravioli on a bed of beetroot, slightly bland flavours and not as good as the exceptional equivalent from Mr Ramsay. This was followed by exceptionally good lamb (best end and confit) with vegetables and bacon – the lamb was meltingly soft with wonderful flavours and seasoned to perfection; if only it had been a bit warmer! Dessert was lemon and meringue, a sort of deconstructed meringue pie if you will, but deeply rich slices of lemon more like tarte au citron, with meringue swirls. It was all very good, but strangely unimaginative for 2 Michelin stars.

Value for money is always debatable when eating somewhere like this – we did the a la carte menu at £80 for 3 courses, which when you’ve added wine (the wine list is both expensive and extensive), water, service, pre dinner drinks etc., turns into closer to £130 per head.

Overall I’m glad I went, but if doing it again I’d probably go at lunchtime to take advantage of some natural light and the good value deals they do at lunch.

This restaurant is a huge disappointment and it is does not deserve to have a Michelin Star. To be honest, it is worse than most gastro pubs.
My fiancé took me there on my birthday 23rd of October. Whereas the service and the atmosphere were fine, the food was just shocking, especially given the prices. I have been to most Michel star restaurants in London and never I have I walked out feeling like a complete idiot, feeling absolutely robbed. We paid over 500 pounds for two. What did we get? Cold bread we could have bought in Tescos! Unimaginative dishes containing leeks and potatoes. The only decent dish on the menu was the beef, but it was just average – I could cook that beef at home, it doesn’t take a lot of Michelin Star artistry to make a decent steak – just go to Harrods or any good butcher, buy the right meat and you are sorted. In any case, if I wanted a steak, I would go to a steak restaurant. We wanted to be impressed by exquisite cooking that we couldn’t do at home, with interesting combinations that would surprise and delight us, which is the opposite of what we got. We ordered the wine pairings with each course. Again, the wine list was atrocious. It basically contained cheaper German Rieslings and at the price we were playing, it was not what we were expecting at all. At one point they brought brown looking wine to pair with the fish that even the waiters noted you wouldn’t be able to drink without food. Not surprisingly, I couldn’t drink it with food either. It was fortified wine mid-way through dinner? Out of all the wines, we found only two decent. Obviously quite disappointed by the whole experience, we politely asked the waiter what is their signature dish? What was so special about this meal? His answer was: the lobster. I am sorry, but putting some lobster next to some leaves does not constitute a signature dish! Maybe for those who don’t eat lobsters regularly it does, but I am guessing this restaurant is aimed at people who can afford that, hence it is just shocking that they think they can boil up some lobster and expect us to be “wow”-ed by their lobster, cold bread and leeks. I would never ever go there again, absolute waste of money. I would quite strongly recommend that instead you go to Koffman’s in the same hotel and you would not be disappointed.

I would just say that I had lunch yesterday, It was faultless in every way. I can't wait to book, again!

WOW!! I love Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley. I took my sister to Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley last week for her birthday and it was more than perfect. Utterly delicious food, perfectly balanced flavours and seasoning, and impeccable service. Chef even sent out a few extra little taster plates as they knew we were foodies and they were spot on with their choices. I am really fussy with my food and eating out in special restaurants such as this is always saved for a reallt special treat and Marcus and his team did not disappoint.I highly recommend it to everyone.

Walking into The Berkley immediately you feel like a bit of a celebrity. The restaurant itself is nice as well. The lighting is good and it feels elegant yet quite intimate. But still you do get a little bit the feeling that you are in a hotel restaurant.

There is a range of different tasting menus to choose from as well as à la carte. We went for the “Seasons of Britain“ menu paired with British wines – partly because this one included Marcus’ famous custard tart.
And British wines? Well, let’s see. If they serve them here, they can’t be too bad.

On the menu it looked like “Seasons of Britain” only included three courses, but as always there’s an amuse bouche, a pre-dessert, lovely bread, so we surely didn’t walk out hungry.

The first full course was lobster and broccoli. I was really looking forward to that, we haven’t had lobster on any of the menus so far. And it was nice, but not quite as fantastic as I had hoped. We’ve had crab or langoustine at some of the other places that were nicer in consistency and flavour. A good dish though, with broccoli cooked in three different ways and a nice sauce – soft flavours that allowed you to still taste the lobster.

We then had the grouse with truffle, kale, Pink Fir Apple potatoes and bread sauce. Very strong flavours, the grouse was quite gamey, but I really enjoyed it.

I’m becoming a big fan of kale as well. Overall just a really lush autumnal dish.

And now it was time for dessert, the moment I’d been waiting for, the custard tart.
What we got though didn’t look like a tart at all. Oh, a pre-dessert! Horlicks, honey, whiskey. Really lovely. An ice cream filled pastry in whiskey foam and little pieces of honey jelly. Made me look forward even more to the famous custard tart.

Then it came, the tart, accompanied by a glass of British sparkling wine. The consistency was absolutely perfect, the custard dissolving as soon as it touched your tongue, a beautiful pastry. But the best British dessert? Nah. I thought it was a bit bland. It might be though that I’m not British enough for it. I’d never had custard tart, I didn’t really know what to expect, I didn’t have memories of eating grandma’s custard tart as a kid. My partner had those and thought it was divine.

Overall the food was very good, but will the night stand out amongst the others? Probably not for the food.
For the British wines? Perhaps. They were surprisingly good. The key word though is probably “surprisingly”. The expectations weren’t very high, but the wines were actually really tasty, especially the Ridgeview sparkling rosé that came with dessert.
What the night will definitely stand out for is the service. The staff was very friendly.
The lovely lady with the Champagne trolley, who seemed to like gin more than the sparkling she was offering and joined us in lamenting that the restaurant didn’t stock Hendricks or any of the really good gins.
The waiter that honestly seemed to want to know if we enjoyed the meal and then engaged with us in a conversation about all the other places we had been to and the ones that he would recommend.
The sommelier was a bit of a lecturer, but as we were having British wines, I actually thought this was quite interesting. And we even got a personal tour of the kitchen from the maître d'.
Marcus wasn’t around at that moment. But I bumped into Roger Federer on the way to the loo, which added the little celebrity factor that you expect when dining at The Berkley.

A bit of a blunder though came with the bill. They overcharged us by £80 and when questioned on it didn’t seem to understand their own bill, leaving us to explain the prices on the menu and do the math.
It ended up coming to £285. Not too bad.
And we left with four little bags of chocolate truffles.

Would I go again? Not sure. Maybe for the lunch menu which seems to be excellent value for money.

I am a great fan of the cooking of Marcus Wareing but despite this have not managed to get to the Berkeley until last night. The dining room itself is a rather subdued affair somewhat tucked away in fact but pleasantly relaxed. The service was super attentive without being overbearing my only reservation is that it becomes frustrating having a dish explained to you in an accent that is so strong as to make the explanation unintelligible.

We opted for the gourmand tasting menu with the fine wine selection which comes out at a whopping £330 per head and I have to say was disappointing for a number of reasons. Whilst all of the cooking was clearly done to a terribly high technical standard many of the dishes just did not work particularly in conjunction with the wines paired by the sommelier. Some examples of this were a cherry ale served with a starter that contained cherries and cheese that just did not work at all. A fantastic fois gras dish was paired with an awful walnut wine , I had no idea such a thing existed and do hope not to make its acquaintance again! An absolutely fantastic piece of beef was paired with raspberries and I have no idea how any chef could think this was a triumph of any sort. Desert was a smoked ice cream that was weird and not at all pleasant and a liquorice cake that was so strong I could still taste it hours later. All in all I felt that it was chef trying way too hard to be different and unusual and whilst everything was clearly superbly constructed it just did not work

The most disappointing aspect was the fine wine selection which contained cherry beer and walnut wine neither of which were fine at all and a rather ordinary Riesling. This was really overpriced and with the exception of a good Lynch barges utterly forgettable. In fact if I could mark this element for value it would only have got 1.

When Marcus and Gordon went their separate ways after a semi-public spat I feared the worst for Marcus – the old Petrus at the Berkley was simply sensational and I wondered whether Marcus would be able to sustain the high levels of cooking alongside running his own restaurant.

I need not have feared – Marcus still produces outstanding food and his tasting menus are as diverse and well thought out as ever. One standout dish I remember is seared scallop on a orange and cauliflower puree – the sweetness of the orange contrasted with the slight bitterness you get with cauliflower, and the richness of the scallop brought the two elements together to make a brilliant taste sensation.

However I have noted that there are times when the food isn't quite up to the high standards and I wonder whether the rest of his kitchen team can achieve the levels required when Marcus isn't in the kitchen. It is this slight lack of consistancy that is most frustrating, as you desperately want a supreme experience every time and sometimes it's just not there.

The service however is impeccable, with the very last detail considered and never over looked. You can't fault it at all. The bonbons at the end are divine too! The room itself is lovely and plush, although it is a bit surprising that you can hear quite clearly what a table on the other side of the room is talking about – not what I would have expected from a restaurant that surely has clients seeking privacy as well as great food.

Still, overall, it is excellent and worthy of its two Michelin stars. Whether a third will come is debatable…

I'm not sure why we hadn't been to MW@TB since the refit – it was fully booked for the reopening and I can only assume it just dropped off our radar. However the Hubby was bored of all of our favourites, and looking for inspiration. Well, inspiration he found: he described this as the best meal he'd had in years. It was all utterly delicious, but I do have some reservations. Did any of you eat at Tom Aitken's when it first opened? Well…

We booked a table at very short notice, and actually there was definitely capacity. The room is dark and moody, and full of wanna-be beautiful people. People were pottering about, and being shown the kitchen – the sort of food tourism I usually find irritating – but I was drawn in – what was happening behind that wall of wine?

I'm reticent to bow down before an effigy of Marcus because I'm uneasy about the endless exertions of the kitchen: this isn't food to scoff, this is food you're supposed to worship. The lovely Marcus has fallen foul of the Michelin Prostration Rule: the more desperately you want your Michelin stars, the more you have to prostrate yourself at the feet of fiddly little bits of twiddle and twaddle – all absolutely delicious in their own way, but there is something of the wafer thin mint by the time your reach the end of your meal. Marcus may have two stars right now, but if it went on effort, he'd probably be in a league of his own. Without doubt he has an excellent palate – but we all know that less is more.

Before I write-up a restaurant I sometimes check other reviews – not so that they can modify my opinion – but because the Giles' and AA's of this world are much better at documenting the little twiddly bits than me. Given how complicated the food is at MW@TB, I definitely checked them. I did note that despite saying that they thought Marcus was one of the best cooks in the UK, they both felt he was trying too hard.

The amuse consisted of a little mock cauliflower cheese: a cauliflower shot, cheese foam a parmesan breadstick. There was another amuse, but in the long line-up of food, it now passes me by…

I ordered the fois gras, which was beautifully presented. The terrine was very finely sliced, which gave you an opportunity to take it either as a tiny mouthful, or piled with the apple and parsnip milk powder*, a whole variety of combinations – or you could eat a number of slices together – in which case the terrine was very rich and perhaps cloying.

The Hubby had the lobster, which he loved, and which looked utterly beautiful. I did note, however, that the mushrooms listed in the menu were not those on his plate. The waiter detailed those in the dish, but you wonder if Marcus had chosen the poetic ‘hen of the woods’ because of how it reads on the menu, rather than his ability to source it. I did steal one of the alexanders as I'd never had one before and it was rather nice.

As a main course I had the venison: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.

OMG

It really was delicious. Best venison dish I've ever had, the previous being Koffman's Venison with chocolate sauce back in the days of La Tante Claire. The venison was perfectly cooked, rare, thinly sliced, melting. The liquorice counterbalanced the earthiness of the farro, and I vaguely remember posturing on the counterpoint of the lychee, though that taste now eludes my memory palate. The monk's beard was delicious – an iron strong cross between spinach and samphire.

The Hubby had the lamb, which he loved, but which I didn't try at all. Apart from the pink peppercorn yoghurt. I like pink peppercorns very much, and this tasted lovely, but apparently was not necessary for the dish stated the Hubby.

We were offered the cheese board, which was mind-blowingly pretty, I could smell it from across the room. However by this stage we both agreed there was going to be little room left if we intended to squish a dessert into a far corner of our appetites, and regretfully we didn't have any. Such a shame.

We were given some kind of little jelly pre-dessert, which was delicious. It may have been a take on a Mojito. It may have been an Old Fashioned. Again my memory palate fails me, but we immediately declared it was the only way to eat jelly.

For my actual elected dessert I had the peanut parfait with salted caramel and Valrhona – seemed rude not to. Gosh it was yummy. I'll have to ask the Hubby what he had, I don't think I even looked at this plate while I practically licked mine clean!

We were offered even more food after this – I have absolutely no idea how people also manage to navigate the petit four trolley which was laden, absolutely laden with goodies. Well, I say I don't know how, but in reality we did take a choccie each – out of politeness you understand. More salted caramel – crisp, melting, delicious.

I mentioned Tom Aiken at the beginning of this piece because MW@TB reminds me of Tom's early days… We ate there three or four times, but with increasing trepidation. There is a genuine limit to how much food one person can eat without being ill. Both chefs seem to be trying to fill us up with their talent and love, but there's only so much of a good thing one diner can take. As a result we stopped going to Tom Aiken, though I understand he's now limited his free culinary outpourings somewhat. Chaps, if you fill us up on all those little twiddly things, we can't try the cheese trolley, which would have earned you more money. We can't come as often, because our bodies literally can't take the assault. I'd like to eat here all the time, but I really think my palate would drown in all those little extras, and that clouds one's ability to focus on what really are brilliantly executed dishes – dishes we asked for – dishes we're paying for.

So – as a rare treat – fill your boots (and your pockets, handbags, and anything else you can find…)

*Thanks Giles – knew you'd ask what it was!