Restaurants

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.

Link to the restaurant…

The 6th choice by Annette was the 2 Michelin star restaurant Kitchen Table, which only got 20 seats in a U-form around the Kitchen – so was very exciting about getting a table at this restaurant.

The restaurant is hidden behind the bar Bubbledogs – so when we arrived early as usual we just got asked to stand in the middle of the Bubbledogs with a glass of water until someone was ready to take us through to the restaurant – which felt a bit awkward. Would have liked to either be offered a proper drink or to be taken through to our seats straight away. Eventually we got taken through to the room in the back, which was basically the restaurant – so very tiny and quite unique where you definitely feel you are part of the whole cooking experience. The chairs are of course all next to each other – so we were pleased when we got 4 seats at the corner, which made it easier to have a conversation.

Basically we had the choice of going for 12 courses for £150 or 15 courses for £190 – all decided each day by the chef. However we thought the 12 courses and the price for them were enough – so we all 4 went for the standard menu. No doubt the focus was on the food here – so did feel a bit like the whole matching drink experience was missing. Took a while before we got a chance to ask for a Gin & Tonic as an aperitif – but then we ended up basically getting our Gin & Tonic with the first course which was not really the idea. The wine menu was also a bit limited and although we did get some recommendation – it was clear that wine was not really the main thing here, which I hope they will try and improve in the future.

The highlight of the night was definitely the atmosphere being so close to the kitchen and also the master chef James Knappett, who you could follow closely doing the cooking and who was also happy to chat to you in between the courses. Additional the food was a true delight – I was a huge fan of the Sardine dish and the Brill with the foie gras, which I thought both had so many flavours – whereas Carlos really loved the Bigusto Ravioli.

Their web-site was saying to allocate 3 ½ hours for the dinner, which we even thought would be slightly rushes as we normally spend between 4-5 hours at a Michelin restaurant. Unfortunately they cut the time down to just below 3 hours – so honestly we felt very rushes and at one point they even started serving the next dish before Ingrid finished the previous one – so we were not happy about that part as they could clearly see she was still eating. Ended up that we took part of the service charge off the bill – as we didn’t feel the service was up to the standards we normally get. Also if they haven’t rushed us so much – we would have bought more to drink – but they missed out on that opportunity.

We had a nice evening – but I was so much looking forward to try this restaurant – so have to admit that except for the food I thought everything else was lacking and was actually quite disappointed.

Link to the restaurant…

The 3rd choice by Annette in the Michelin Club was the 2 Star Michelin restaurant DINNER by heston blumenthal – since I really wanted to see what Mr Blumenthal is all about even though I am well aware that this is a very different restaurant to the Fat Duck.

DINNER is part of the exclusive Mandarin Oriental Hotel and we therefore started the evening at the next door Mandarin Bar, where we had some very nice cocktails. Got a bit surprised when we realized in the end of the evening that we had paid more for a normal Gin & Tonic than any of the cocktails (which were not cheap either) but except for that it was a nice start to the evening. Waited a little bit to get picked up for our table – but were pleased with the location we got in the restaurant and the spacious round table, which made the evening comfortable.

For the first time in ages we got to pick the food from a A La Carte menu, so that was nice for a change but of course made the choice a bit more difficult. The menu was quite interesting in the way that all dishes were related to a specific century and there was an explanation to the sources of origin at the back of the menu. One of their signature dishes is the ‘Meat Fruit’ starter, which both Carlos and I went for and which was a true delight. Beautiful served like a mandarin with a delicious chicken liver & foie gras parfait. Unfortunately Ingrid was less lucky with her ‘Hay Smoked Mackerel’, which was not to her taste palette at all. In fairness to the restaurant we didn’t pay for the Mackerel in the end – so thought that was reasonable managed by them. We all had 4 different main courses, which were all nice but nothing outstanding. For dessert we probably made the mistake of not going for their other signature dish the ‘Tipsy Cake’, which was highly recommended by the waiter, but had to be ordered from the beginning because of the long preparation time, which put us off a bit. Again the cheese board and our desserts were nice – but we were missing the same WOW factor, which we got from the ‘Meat Fruit’ starter.

The service was nice and discrete but was missing the final attention to details, which we have found at other 2 star Michelin restaurants.

Carlos and I also had the usual kitchen tour, which we got before the desserts were served and therefore still saw the kitchen in full action. Here we got a proper explanation about their signature dishes and how they were made and also got to know about the different functions in the kitchen. Even though the kitchen is fully visible through a glass wall from the restaurant – we both still found the kitchen tour really interesting.

Overall everyone had a really nice evening and the atmosphere in the restaurant was nice and exclusive.

Link to the restaurant..