Viajante – Pics at The London Foodie

Having had the most fantastic meal at The Loft supper club which I reviewed in 2009 (here), I was eagerly awaiting the opening of Nuno Mendes’ new restaurant “Viajante” in Bethnal Green’s imposing Town Hall building.

I was pleased to find that they offer a £25 lunch set menu which I tweeted about. It didn’t take more than a few minutes until a tweet up was organised with Uyen & Simon of Fernandez and Leluu, Jones (Unwholey), Euwen (A rather unusual chinaman), and Joshua of Cooking the Books.

Set in the grand Town Hall building, the bar and restaurant areas are airy and light, boasting huge windows, parquet flooring, and some very elegant furnishings. I liked the clean, semi-minimalist feel of these rooms, with their light colours and the Scandinavian-styled furniture. It was also good to find a relatively intimate restaurant (a maximum of 40 covers at any one time) which overlooks an open plan kitchen so diners can watch the chefs in action.

We had a few cocktails at the bar before heading to the dining area (diners are only seated when the entire party is at the restaurant). We opted for the 3-couse set menu priced at £25. There are no descriptions of the dishes on the menu. Viajante also offers 6 courses @ £60, 9 courses @ £75 and 12 courses @ £85. Wine “flights” can also be purchased to match each course and these are priced @ £30, £45 and £60 respectively.

We kicked off proceedings with a dainty amuse bouche of paper thin toast topped with romesco sauce, tapenade, greens and gherkin slices in a beautiful checker-board pattern.

Our first starter was a glass of soya milk (similar to a panna cotta in texture), and tasted like good quality, creamy tofu I have eaten in Japan. This was topped with a delicious layer of jellied dashi flavoured with aubergines and a small sandwich of pureed aubergine in layers of filo pastry. I loved the combination of flavours of this dish, although some of my fellow diners disagreed, so I was lucky… More