Early last week, during what is likely to be the coldest March in living memory, we were invited by lastminute.com to participate in a ‘restaurant safari’, visiting three different restaurants in Mayfair to sample three different courses as part of their London Restaurant Fortnight, which is offering discounted deals to some of London’s most exclusive restaurants.
Things started off well at the first restaurant, @venue, which is situated on St James Street a short and pleasant walk from Green Park Station. They were friendly and welcoming although a little uncertain about our booking (a taste of things to come). Our table was in a corner of the restaurant which overlooked the sparse, near clinical, décor and the maître d’ arrived to offer us a reduced but still appetising-looking menu along with the glass of champagne that started off our evening. The first thing to land on our table was the complimentary bread, which consisted of some fresh but typical English fare and, hidden under a napkin, we also discovered a Finnish speciality – a sweet rye bread that was a secret blend of oats and nuts. I’m not sure that it worked as a regular bread accompaniment but it was delicious and interesting.
I chose the smoked salmon with a cream and horseradish mousse and my partner chose the duck rillette, which turned out to be the superior option. My salmon was excellent and the potato and onion side it came with was delicious, although a little too small to meet the amount of salmon – the horseradish mousse was rather dissapointing though as it had only a tiny hint of horseradish and tasted mostly of cream. The duck, on the other hand, was simple and elegantly presented although it could have done with more toast.
Quaglino’s was the destination for our main course – only a short walk away, but a bit of a chore in the freezing cold. After a few minutes we arrived at a small glass fronted lobby which dropped down into their huge and wildly colourfully lit restaurant. Fortunately the staff here seemed to be more on top of things which was nice, although we got the wrong menus initially which they rectified in a couple of minutes.
The choice again looked good, although there was a bit of an up-sell involved here – the roast chicken I ordered was simply that, a roast chicken with some mushrooms and sauce. My partner’s pork cheeks, which were delicious and tender, came with a small amount of potato, but if you wanted a bowl of chips or a side salad that was an additional £4. If you’re going for only two courses you may want to go for this option, but as we still had a restaurant remaining we decided not to splash out.
Once your order is taken, Quaglino’s send along a dedicated sommelier who arrives at your table to suggest suitable wines, which I thought was a very sophisticated touch. Comparing Quaglino’s to @venue is tough – both restaurants served equally delicious food and while service at @venue was more efficient the atmosphere in Quaglino’s was far more buzzing, although by the end of our meal the venue was pretty packed – for some reason they were only using half the covers, leaving part of the restaurant empty.
Unfortunately things went downhill from here, when we headed to Sartoria for our dessert. They do dub the experience a ‘safari’ but we weren’t expecting a ten minute walk, almost to the far end of Savile Row. Sartoria is a chic venue and we were looking forward to settling into the plush brown and cream chairs, but unfortunately on our arrival we discovered that there was absolutely no record of our booking…
It later transpired that there was a breakdown of communication between the booking agency and the staff who were working during the evening, but I decided that we should at least try the desert, skipping the safari-described offer of dessert wine or coffee or tea to keep our costs down. Perhaps it was the experience of arriving to blank stares, but we didn’t really enjoy the end of our meal – to put it bluntly the dishes seemed overly fussy in presentation and lacking in substance. We decided to cut our losses and left as quickly as we could, but not without letting the reception staff know how we felt…
Since then we’ve had an apology and the offer of a complimentary meal including wine, but I do think they need to iron out the rough edges if they’re going to offer this kind of experience to regular paying customers. In general, the restaurants seemed a little confused – for one thing they weren’t aware that our evening was part of Lastminute.com’s London Restaurant Fortnight and also seemed a little bemused by the fact that we only wanted one course . That being said, despite our experience at the end of the evening I would certainly consider returning to both @venue and Quaglino’s, with Quaglino’s getting the edge because of the atmosphere. I can’t fault @venue for their sense of humour however, as there was witty repartee on Twitter during the evening concerning their rather unusual (and satisfyingly geeky) name.