The 3rd choice by Manual was the 1 Michelin star restaurant Texture. An interesting choice where we for the first time tried a Nordic chef.
We started the evening in the front of the restaurant where they have a nice bar area. I was there slightly early and the waiter immediately came and offered me a glass of champagne. I nearly asked him whether he previously worked for Marcus Wareing :-), where they are also very quick to offer you champagne. However based on what we got charged at Marcus for the champagne – I kindly said no and asked for the cocktail menu instead.
We enjoyed a few nice cocktails before getting seated in the restaurant where we unfortunately didn’t get a great table. We were kind of squeezed into the corner – so it was not easy for the waiters to serve every person properly and we could definitely have done with some more space around us.
We all 4 went for the 7 courses Tasting menu and added the additional cheese board to that. For the first time ever we also tried the menu with the matching Prestige Wine paring. The most outstanding dish for me was the Warm Smoked Eel, which I absolutely loved. However being Scandinavian myself – eel has always been one of my favorite dishes and this one was just perfect. It was probably also the most Scandinavian inspired dish. However turned out that the wine matching was a mistake. Did not feel like we had enough wine for each dish and had to order extra to not sit with empty glasses all the time. However at least we now know and won’t do that again.
In the end of the evening Carlos and I did our usual kitchen tour, which was quite quick but still interesting to see.
The restaurant finished the evening with serving us cakes, macarons, chocolates and coffees on the house and the ladies got a small box with Icelandic Lava Salt when we left the restaurant. A nice touch and finish to the evening and despite a few hick-ups we still all enjoyed the experience very much. However the best part was when the waiter in the end recommend the perfect cigar place, which turned out to be just opposite the road. We therefore all continued the night at The Churchill Bar with some great whiskies and cigars.
