The 6th choice by Carlos was the 2 Michelin star restaurant Core by Clare Smyth, which we were all very excited about. Clare is the only female chef that have ever run a 3 Michelin star kitchen in the UK – when she worked for Gordon Ramsay in his flagship restaurant at Royal Hospital Road.
The restaurant is very spacious and nice looking and our evening started really well when Clare herself greeted us from the kitchen when we entered the restaurant. We got a nice round table in the middle and were spoiled for choice by 2 different excellent 7 courses menus. We ended up with 2 of us going for the Classics menu and 2 of us went for the Seasons menu. All the dishes were so beautifully represented and you could really see a lot of effort went into every single course. Don’t think I can say which menu was the best as we all had some delicious food. For us who had the Roasted Monkfish – that was definitely one of the highlights.
The Sommelier was also really knowledgeable and helpful – so supported us in picking some excellent wines for the 2 different menus. Overall the service and staff were really good and the whole place just had a really good vibe.
Again because of COVID restrictions we couldn’t get into the kitchen itself – but when we left the restaurant Clare came out to have a chat with us and we managed to get a few pictures with her. Amazing to see the Head chef staying longer that we did – as we are normally the last ones to leave – so have never experienced that before.
Can only say we had a fantastic evening and Core ended up being voted as our current 2nd best restaurant that we have ever been to. We were also very pleased when 6 months later Clare received her 3rd Michelin star – can only say this is fully deserved.
