Nick's review of L'Oranger

My wife and I were lucky enough to be taken to dinner last night in a group of 12. This was our first visit to L'Oranger and we enjoyed it.

We arrived late given a prior carol service so sat down at 10.15 pm. The restaurant was by no means full at this time and by the time we finished around mid-night we were the last there. Given the size of our group we produced our own atmosphere (hopefully we were not too loud!). The room itself is very charming and, given the huge skylight, must be very light and airy on warm summer days/nights.

We choose off a limited menu but the food was excellent. I started with the artichoke soup – lovely! Others had the scallops and enjoyed them. I then had the beef – really delicious and beautifully presented – others had the lamb – declared good and I finished with the lemon tart – slight hard pastry but a minor quiable – others had the chocolate ‘melt in the middle’ dessert which was also declared excellent.

For wine we chose a grenache/cab sab mix from north eastern Spain (above Barcelona), which was much more reasonable than the french wines and went really well with the beef and lamb. – cant remember what the white was!

Service was efficient and done with French ‘panache’. During the meal we noticed through the glass window that an almighty row had broken out involving several chef s and including the wine waiter. This carried on for some minutes and we asked for the door to the kitchen to be opened so we could listen to the row as part of our entertainment – this request , rather disappointingly, was politely refused!

As I wasnt paying I didnt see the bill but this, I suspect, is not a ‘light’ budget location.

Conclusion – Thoroughly enjoyed and, in particular, the food was excellent!