A few recent meals in London

I spent some time in London recently and had some notable meals.
Hawksmoor
This is a sort of chain of steakhouses in London, there are a handlful of locations. I went to the one in Guildhall as it was near the hotel I stayed in for part of the week. It was fantastic. It's a big place, with very non-steakhouse decor. Very simple, large main dining room with plain tables. The steaks are large, typically sold by weight, the standard for ribeyes, porterhouses, etc being 800 grams. I stuck with the bone in sirloin, which was half that, with onion rings, and sauteed vegetables and goat cheese, peanut butter shortbread with caramel and ice cream for dessert. Meat was great, well cooked, and the overall experience was very good. Had a business lunch here a few days later and had a similarly solid experience.

St John
This place is sort of a food nerd destination as Fergus Henderson has been a hero to home cooks as he's had no actual formal training as a chef, yet has helmed this iconic restaurant for 20 odd years or so. This is not a fancy space, nor is it a place for jacked up presentations. What it is, is simple, classical English cooking. That notion probably doesn't get your stomach rumbling given that fine dining and English cooking seems oxymoronic, but this place should be a destination for anyone visiting London who loves food. I had the bone marrow appetizer, with parsley salad. It was very good, but the bone marrow with oxtail marmalade at Blue Ribbon in NYC is better. For an entree I had lamb sweetbreads, which were great, and a buttermilk pudding for dessert.

Ottolenghi
I've eaten at a couple of the Ottolenghi locations in London and have two of his cookbooks. If you like Mediterranean style cooking, this is the place for you. Until recently, choices were the various Ottolenghi delis around London, but they recently opened a more formal restaurant, NOPI, in SoHo. I had breakfast here twice and it was fantastic each time. The first time I had mushrooms on sourdough with a poached egg. It was fantastic, just hearty, well done, perfectly sauteed mushrooms, and a bite, probably from some sherry vinegar. The poached egg was a bit overcooked, but the flavors were great. I ate here again the next day for breakfast, and had french toast with star anise sugar, with berry compote and orange yogurt. Now both of these are pretty straightforward, but this was actually a pretty cheap breakfast. I think I got out of there for under 15 pounds each day. One thing about eating in London, bring money, because it's expensive, in absolute terms, imagine a really expensive restaurant in the US, then remember the prices are all in pounds. That would be an accurate way to think about it. Anyway, the food is outstanding, as it is at the delis, where I had lunch one day as well. Now, I'm a red blooded meat eater like many on here, and the idea of vegetarianism generally makes me queasy, but vegetables are a focus at the various Ottloenghi delis. However, the dishes available here are the kind I'm generally happy to eat.

This was three salads and a main. The salads were: Cauliflower, hazelnuts, tahini, seeds and herbs. Augergine, yogurt, parsley, parsley oil, mixed seeds. Red quinoa, basmati, broad beans, chili, lemon, spring onion and mixed nuts. And I had a "main" of Lamb, pistachio, bulgur kebab with saffron yogurt. I could eat this stuff every day and would probably weigh twenty pounds less......



....but I don't, because I also had dessert:


Apparently one trend in London lately is restaurants who serve an extremely limited menu with just a few items. One popular budding chain is Burger & Lobster. I had dinner here one night, and it was a scene. They serve three things: burger, steamed lobster, finished on a grill, and a lobster roll. I wasn't that hungry, because I'd had lunch at Hawksmoor for the second time in two days, so I had the lobster roll. It was really good, and they were pouring a lot of interesting wines by the glass. If you want a relatively inexpensive meal in London, and/or you want to check out a scene, this is a good option.

For my final meal I went to L'atelier Joel Robuchon as a splurge. There are several of these around the world, and I've been to the one in Vegas. These are unique venues as they're basically bar seating all around. The kitchen is in the center of the restaurant, surrounded by a bar that goes around 3/4 of it. If you like to watch cooking/plating, this is the place for you. I had an early dinner, so I ended up getting the pre-theater pricing, which was something like 65 pounds, with wines, which was a bargain given the quality of the cooking. I'm not one to take pictures of my food, but I did take pictures of these dishes.

Tempura prawns with little gem lettuces. I started eating this before I took a pic, so sorry.



Poached egg, on parmesean mousseline with crispy ham, and some crispy noodle things. This was fantastic.

Lobster, with pasta shells and lobster coral foam.

Crispy pork belly, with de puy lentils and carrots. I've eaten and cooked a lot of pork belly, but this was really exceptional.

The pork belly was served with a side of Robuchon potato puree, which I've seen made on TV a few times. It's basically made with a 1/1 ratio of butter to potato. I made this joke with the waiter, and he told me it's probably more than 1/1 in the butter's favor. The fat content in this is so high, you could probably stick a wick in this and burn it like a candle.


Given that I have cooked this dish myself a few times, one thing that was exceptionally impressive, was the consistency of the size of the diced carrots. I mean, look at that, that is insane, there were another twenty or so that I had eaten already, but this is crazy.