Jonesy's Reviews

A starter of deep fried cod brandade with a parmesan crisp, rocket salad and aioli was a delicate concoction belaying an experienced hand and palate. The brandade, a posh fishcake, was juicy and meaty; the aioli was good enough to eat a bucketful (not recommended on a first date).

The main course, a slow roast shoulder of Kentish pork accompanied by crunchy crackling, creamed potato, Savoy cabbage and caramelised apples, was as delicious as it sounds. The maitre d’, Mrs Johnson, told us that nobody makes mashed potato like her husband. And she was right.

By now I was finding it hard to contain my excitement about the dessert. Enter stage left, chocolate and crème fraiche mousse with Bailey’s ice cream and a spiced orange ‘soup’. The nail was hit squarely on the head once again. In the words of the greedy Valentine Warner, “Wow, wow…Wow.”

At £29.95 for three courses of this quality, you can’t help feeling that something magical really is at work here. It’s not only the food and the service that surpass all expectations, even the little dining room manages to feel larger than it is, without losing any of its intimacy.

Read the full review at The Arbuturian.

The waiting staff at The Albemarle are trained to a high standard and ooze proficiency from every pore. They were not intrusive yet managed to provide a level of service that stopped just short of cutting our food and hand-feeding us. This degree of professionalism doesn’t come easily and I must doff my Trilby to them.

The food wasn’t quite up to par though. We were dining from the pre-theatre menu priced at £25 for three courses. A starter of cuttlefish and black pudding was a tad off the mark; the cuttlefish was slightly overcooked, injecting an element of disappointment into this otherwise well balanced dish.

A Lancashire Hot Pot for a main didn’t have enough of a potato layer, but the beef, kidneys and mushrooms were deeply flavoured and very pleasing. The accompaniment of pickled cabbage was too acidic for my tastes. The Pollack we tried was plump and juicy but way over salted.

For dessert, a rhubarb tart was quite delectable, as was the buttermilk pudding with blood orange segments. Water, tea and coffees were priced at £4.95 each, so a £25 meal deal quickly turns into £45 a head, and that’s without the wine.

While the food was acceptable if underwhelming, the service surpassed the cooking throughout the evening. The dishes were well thought out but the execution didn’t live up to the standards that I was expecting. If they can raise the bar of cooking to match the service, The Albemarle will be an excellent venue.

The concept of a Bistrot de Luxe is that you can eat better-than-bistro food at bistro prices. While the set lunch and pre-theatre menu is undoubtedly good value, their a la carte menu is no cheaper than any other half-decent restaurant in the West End, so be warned.

On my first visit to Galvin, the twelve-year-old French waiter thought that my partner should be told which spoon to eat her soup with and which spoon to use for the gruyere cheese. Now, one was a soup spoon and one was a teaspoon. My partner may be blonde, but she knows that one should not use a teaspoon to eat one’s soup with.

The soup itself was a traditional French fish soup, slightly more watery than one finds in most Parisian bistros. The rest of the meal went without a hitch; the food was very good and the quality of the ingredients was evident. In comparison to a Parisian bistro which they claim to emulate, it is on a par with the decent ones.

While the service can be a tad patchy, the food has been of a high standard the few times I’ve eaten here. You could certainly pay the same and get a lot worse, so in all they have a good thing here.

Mixing urban industrial chic with natural elements of stone and wood, the interior of Zuma immediately reeks of cool. No wonder this is a hotbed of celebrities and the Knightsbridge elite.

In the bar area, I'm surrounded by people wearing Prada and oversized sunglasses. It's like stepping into a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

At the table, it’s a more relaxed affair. Urban music plays from somewhere amidst the metal piping overhead, but the stone floor and the size of the room gives it the noisy acoustic that one finds in a large canteen.

We plumped for the tasting menu, a wallet-busting price but well worth it for the exceptional food on offer. The selection of nigiri sushi and sashimi arrives on a bed of crushed ice; the fish is of the highest quality and virtually melts in the mouth. The robata grilled wagyu beef is superlative, the marinated black cod a delight.

The most notable dish of the evening was a seared and miso-marinated foie gras with umeboshi compote. The umeboshi, a type of dried, pickled fruit, was unbelievably sharp, sour and salty, providing an incredible contrast to the deep, rich and overbearing foie gras. You couldn’t eat one without the other. It was a black and white flavour combination that made one wince and laugh at the same time, utterly fabulous.

To drink, we tried one of their sakes from the extensive list. Service was polite and attentive, and we weren’t table-turned despite it being a busy Saturday night.

If you don’t mind posing with wannabe celebrities, then you really must give Zuma a go. For foodies, it’s simply heavenly.

This impressive venue first sprang to life as a showroom in the 1920s for Wolseley Motors and was then commandeered by Barclays Bank for the next 72 years. In 2003, the restaurateurs Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, the duo behind such icons as The Ivy and J. Sheekey, restored the place to its former Art Deco glory and turned it into an all-day dining venue.

Opting to visit them for a busy midweek lunchtime service, I walked into the grand dining room and gawped at the gigantic space; it really is quite breathtaking. It’s a bit like stepping into the cavernous foyer of the Natural History Museum, with quadruple-height ceilings, huge pillars and chandeliers, black and white tiled floors and polished brass rails; it’s the type of restaurant you would find Hercule Poirot dining in.

The menu is somewhat less inspiring. Very similar to a French brasserie, you can dine here for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea (okay, that’s not so French) and dinner, from 7am to midnight. On the day, I wasn’t feeling all that adventurous, so I chose the chicken soup with dumplings, and a main of rib eye steak with chips. Both courses were nicely done but nothing remarkable, and the moderate prices reflect this; you get what you pay for.

Service was brisk and in a constant state of controlled panic, but not impolite. Yet the most notable thing was the room itself. The height of the ceilings makes it a rather noisy, airy place to eat, but you really do feel as if you’ve been transported back to the roaring 1920s into the hub of London’s cocktail-drinking society. I wanted to utter remarks like, “What ho! Bring me a G and T old bean, easy on the T. There’s a good chap”.

For some reason celebrities love Corbin and King’s restaurants, and on this particular day we had John Hurt sitting at the table next to us. I couldn’t help amusing myself with the thought of an alien bursting out of his chest and running amok under the tables. Ronnie Corbett was sat at the other side of the dining room, the alien’s… More

I had an evening meal here soon after they received their first Michelin-star, and I was most impressed by the calibre of cooking on offer; in my opinion they produce superior dishes to many other one-star Michelin joints. I returned a year later to sample the set lunch menu with my fellow gourmets from The Arbuturian, and we were greatly impressed.

The food engineered by Aussie chef Brett Graham is inventive, playful and very well constructed. All the flavours work well together, and often provide a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Presentation is very artful too. The set lunch menu is tremendous value at a mere £24.50 for three courses, and portions were very generous. Service here is relaxed yet attentive, and not at all stuffy. The decor is typically modern chic.

The amuse bouche arrived in the form of a beetroot meringue filled with pureed fois gras. The meringue disintegrated in the mouth and led to a wonderfully rich fois gras experience. A great start to a promising meal.

For a starter, I had an interesting smoked celeriac and middle pork dish. The waitress brought us the celeriac on a wooden board to demonstrate how the vegetable had been entombed in a bread-like mould and then smoked with hay, before being sliced and plated up. It was nice to be informed about this complex procedure, and the flavours really spoke for themselves when we got to sample the dish.

For a main, I had beef shin with a Jerusalem artichoke puree and wild mushrooms. The beef was rich and intense, a most warming and tasty dish. My companion opted for the roasted turbot, which he reported to taste as sublime as it looked.

For dessert we chose their cheeseboard, though I recall their desserts being of a very high quality and wish we’d gone for puddings instead.

In summary, this is still an excellent venue and I would recommend it for both lunch and dinner, and with a set lunch menu at such a low price, you have no excuse not to try this place!

Just watch out for the parking wardens if… More

This restaurant has been a long-time favourite of mine for many years. Although the menu has remained largely unmodified, I don't think this is a bad thing – if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Staple dishes such as lobster cannellone and the slow cooked beef fillet are to die for. They use excellent ingredients and I have never had a single quibble about the cooking or the service during any of the numerous meals I've had here.

Then there's the atmosphere – African wood carvings, interesting paintings, live jazz and all set in a beautiful Victorian townhouse, with very comfy seating and a relaxed lighting scheme set at just the right balance between not too bright and not too dark.

If you are looking for somewhere to host a small private dining function, their private room is just the place. A part of the normal dining area, it can be closed off to create a lovely room that is a bit like dining in someone's expensive townhouse in Notting Hill, complete with waiting staff and a very good chef in the kitchen.

To call this place a brasserie doesn't really do it justice, other than conveying the relaxed feel of the place. It really is one of those restaurants you can just melt away in, spending a long evening over a fantastic bottle of vin rouge and perhaps a few of their cocktails to boot. Long may it prosper!