Grenville's Reviews

The other day I read in a newspaper a list the places serving best fish and chips in Britain.

On Saturday I was telling a friend about this list and made the comment that in my view the best fish and chips in the land are to be had at Scott's.

He was somewhat dubious about my claim and started rambling on about some establishment on the Orkney Islands that he had been to thirty years before.

In order to cut short what seemed set to be a long reminiscence I interjected, I said that there then I would take him to Scott's, thus proving my point.

I telephoned Scott's and managed to get a couple of seats at the bar.
We arrived there half an hour later.
The place was packed.

There was however a table for two that was sitting there empty and they were delighted to let us ‘upgrade’.

Bread arrived almost instantaneously, this followed by the most delicious butter, probably whey.
The bread is fabulous, so much better than it is possible to buy from any London bakery that I can find.

We ordered an English Pilsner beer each – the only type that they sell, and then gave our order for halibut in batter sitting on a bed of mushy peas with chips on the side.

After a few minutes of conversation about the recession and how it was packing out London restaurants – and theatres, our order arrived and it was unexpectedly accompanied by a sauce-boat of tartare.

We ordered two more beers and then started.

The fish batter was really well cooked, not too hard, just right. The halibut inside the batter was full of flavour and the portion size big,
The taste of the mushy peas had been so altered as to taste mainly of mint which was a relief as normally I find mushy peas unattractive to look at and perfectly vile to eat, These were delicious though, perhaps their colour was a little too sensational. The chips had clearly been twice fried and were as good as any obtainable in France.
The tartare sauce was obviously restaurant made, as was the bread.
The English pilsner was delicious.
We… More

20/08/2010.
We went there last night.
The first noticable thing was that there were a lot middle-aged wealthy looking Indian couples having a fun dinner party at a big table in the centre of the room, also many of the other tables were occupied by well heeled looking Asian couples.
My heart leapt since this is always a good sign.
We were quickly seated, menus brought and interestingly the wine list was handed to my wife – never had this happened before – at 67 years old I was flattered to think that I looked so much younger than my young looking wife, simply brilliant!
This establishment specialises in what is described by them as ‘North Indian Frontier Cuisine’.
The menu is divided up into three pages of starters and then there is a half page of main courses followed by rice and breads etc., We had four dishes from the starters plus rice, we really struggled to finish it all, the portions are quite big.
Whilst it is true that the dishes are all fairly familiar, many of them can be found in every run of the mill Indian restaurant in the land, we found everything exceptionally well seasoned and at times very subtle indeed, the tandoor chicken tika was as good as can be imagined and everything was well presented. We drank salted lassi and then tap water.
My overall impression is that for a really well done standard Indian meal this is almost as good as the Star in the Old Brompton Road.
The decor is a pleasant sand colour with proper napery, the restaurant is child friendly, one slight niggle was that our particular waiter did not seem to have much English yet he smiled a lot which was nice.
There is it seems a take-out service which was rather surprising for a smart looking Knightsbridge ‘Indian’.
The restaurant is part of a small chain, there are also Haandis in Kampala and Nairobi. The bill for two including the service charge was £43…
This is not supposed to be haute cuisine but it was exactly what we wanted last evening.
Afterwards we slept well with not a hint of… More

SET LUNCH A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO.

All looks the same but no Silvano, it really shows.
The new maitre d' clearly needs a few more years of schmoozing practice as well as getting a grip on the service which lacked grace and was spikey. Until very recently the service could only be described as seamless perfection.
The set luch menu was clever in as much as there was nothing on it that I particularly wanted to eat, now there is a first at Le Gavroche
It was as if the menu was devoid of imagination and worst of all generosity, my abiding memory is that the main courses were all constructed from cheaper ingredients, another first.
The included half bottle of red wine that each of us were given simply did not suit the food.
At the end of the meal Michel Roux Jr passed by and I asked him why he was serving a red wine that did not compliment the food.
In reply I got a lot of stuff about various restaurants in France where this wine is considered wonderful and so on, he then asked why I did not change it, I told him that we had all tasted the wine and it fine it was not corked so there was no justification in sending it back.
Following this exchange and not wishing to upset those who were with me, I had not got the heart to totally upset him by saying that the set menu had, in our opinion, was somewhat dismal, I was sorely tempted though.
Since that time I have discovered others who agree with me and they have started going to other places for lunch and dinner, this must mean that the word is out on the street, though, to be fair, the dinner is probably still very good. However I myself am not prepared to take the chance, that is unless someone else is picking up the tab.
This is a truly great restaurant, to be utterly charitable it is probably best to think that it was having a bit of a rough patch following the arrival of a new maitre d'.
All that needs to happen is for the owner to get off television and get his eye back on the ball so that it is once again possible to go to the… More

Having been badly let down by Bel Canto who could not find enough opera singers in order to open and it being my wife's birthday i managed to get a last minute table at Skylon. Luck favouring a birthday-girl, we got a suddenly vacant front row table overlooking the embankment and over the Thames, The view was breathtakingly beautiful and must be the most romantic of any restaurant in London.
The restaurant itself is at one end of a vast open-plan room the other bit of the room being the brasserie section. We had table cloths the brasserie didn't. The noise level was tremendous, never experienced anything like it.
The first noticable thing was the utter charm of the staff, never in Britain have I been served by such people and for one moment I thought that they had all been trained by the Chedi Hotel in Muscat, totally amazing.
The starters were perfectly good, the main courses were turbot which was delicious and only ruined by being served with bacon and boiled broccoli. The other main was duck leg and breast which was good but was served with what appeared to be a creamy rice pudding with a weird taste – why?

Suddenly the people on the next table saw a mouse running across the floor heading towards another table, there was a lot of screaming by the women and laughter by the men. The very suave maitre d' at once came over and apologised.

Next came dessert which was a honey thing with iced cream, also we ordered crepes with raspberry sauce, it was perfecly good, cooked in front of us but in truth was pedestrian in taste, somehow it lacked any ‘bottom’ taste whatsoever.
When asked how i enjoyed the desserts I told the waiter that they were pretty much rubbish, at first he thought I was joking.

The wine list has lots by the glass and it is to their credit that when you order a 175ml glass of wine for £8 the same wine appears later in the list at £32.

The staff get the tips here, not the management who are on salaries.

All in all a mixed experience but the staff, the view… More