Jean's Reviews

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!

At last a fine dining experience in the City!

The Potteresque building has been refurbished to a high standard and is stunningly beautiful with light pouring through the upper windows – a very pleasant change from most City restaurants which tend to be in basements.

The service was impeccable and combined with a real desire to assist; the food was wonderful, the slow cooked lamb was absolutely divine, the flavours were sublime and the portions suprisingly large. There was an excellent selection of wine by the glass and bottle; the sommelier was extremely helpful in recommending wines by the glass to match our food. All in all a wonderful experience to be repeated often!

The Galvin brothers have very successfully transplanted a little West End pizazz to the City.