Last night The Boy & I went for supper at Hereford Road, the home of former St John's head chef, Tom Pemberton.
It's gotten rave reviews in The Times, The Telegraph, The Gardian, Time Out etc... but we were left a little non plussed.
A pretty, Parisian entrance greets you as you walk through the door and sullen chefs eye you suspiciously from the kitchen on the left.
All the food is seasonal and you're presented with Today's Menu, which is rather exciting. It's quite nice to know that you're trying something different to those before you or those who'll come after. Almost like a secret, shared only with you.
Terminally indecisive, we decided to ask for all the starters and skip the mains entirely.
With a raised eyebrow the waiter conceded to take our rather unusual order to the kitchen.
What came back was a little roller coaster of food emotions!
Some of the dishes were incredible, well cooked, simple & elegant (particularly the quail). Others were dreary, the asparagus for example is the most expensive dish on the menu & we were amazed at how genuinely poor it was, over cooked and badly presented.
All in all, the food was good. Not exceptional, but good.
For pudding we had very pretty rice pudding & eye wateringly tart lemon sorbet.
On the whole it was a nice atmosphere but didn't quite live up to the hype.
St John Bread & Wine in Shoreditch remains one of my favourite restaurants, and I'm a little disappointed not to have stumbled upon the West London version.
I love sardines! At least you didn't have to worry about choosing a meal you didn't like! x
ReplyDeletejusta-thought.co.uk
love these! x hivenn
ReplyDeleteI had always wondered where Tom Pemberton had gone after St John. He helped me pick out an amazing menu when I held a birthday party in St John years ago. Sardines are my favourite. Remind me of holidays in the Algarve when I was a child. Lx
ReplyDeleteOh dear :S I'm not the world's most avid diner but even I can see something a bit off with the presentation of the asparagus :S almost like it was just thrown onto the plate. The rest looked lovely though.
ReplyDeleteThe asparagus doesn't look great! How on earth did they justify it being the most expensive dish?
ReplyDeleteGreat blog, I'm a new follower
Rebecca
@leer31