Colette's

Foodess ( 50s, Female, United Kingdom )

Driving towards this imposingly tall old building I was wondering what to expect for I didn’t have time to check it out first, and my initial guess was to find stiff and starchy, but how wrong I was. They have managed to make a grand scale dining room inviting and almost cosy through simple dramatic décor and shrewd ambience. I found it difficult to choose from the menu because there were many interesting ingredient combo’s, and I was distracted by wonderful wafts of cheese as the trolley went by. Really pleasant, knowledgeable staff eased the process. After making our food choices we plumped for a superb wine sourced apparently from a tiny relatively new vineyard in Languedoc. The comprehensive list included descriptions of each wine which is so useful especially if you have to wait for the sommelier, which we didn’t, plus there was a good mid-price range. Precise cooking was niftily and sometimes very colourfully presented, with some dishes subtley balanced whilst others bigger in flavour. A near perfect experience rounding off with a witty neat rectangular toffee crisp and choc dessert which perfectly tickled our taste-buds (not too sweet), and visually enlivened with a flash of gold leaf.