It would be improper of me not to let you know about the new Sunday Roast at Bob Bob Ricard in London. Or to mention Bob Bob Ricard at all, it has been a while. Bob Bob Ricard is a most under rated restaurant. It doesn’t care about trends, the food is classic, and it is very well executed. It is refreshing and it is fun. Even though Bob Bob Ricard is in the heart of Soho, it feels like it could be a grand restaurant from 100 years ago or a very large carriage of a luxury train. When I have visitors in town, we often go.

It is famous for being the home of the famous Press for Champagne button. I always allow myself to press it at least once. When you do, your table number lights up above the bar, and a glass of house champagne is delivered to you. Another essential drink for every visit is the rhubarb G&T, bright pink, intensely flavoured and textured with egg white. The cocktails generally are very good.

The menu is part Russian, and I always order some Russian dishes. Baked Oysters Brezhnev were like a parmesan truffle soufflé with a delicate oyster underneath.

For starters, I had the beef tea soup, a crystal clear gorgeous broth with Siberian pelmeni, traditional beef and lamb dumplings. Others at the table had lobster, crab and shrimp pelmeni; seabass ceviche with avocado and truffled potato and mushroom vareniki (also traditional dumplings served with crispy onion and shimeji mushrooms).

Then the main event, the Sunday Roast arrived. Preceded by plates with perfect Yorkshire puddings, slow roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips roasted in beef dripping with honey and thyme, horseradish cream and truffle gravy, the USDA prime black angus was delivered perfectly pink. The beef was a roast rump cap, a cut that I love for the rich beautiful flavour that it has. We don’t see enough of it here, but is is hugely popular in Brazil, where it is called picanha. We also had bright sweet creamed corn and buttered greens. To drink, we had Crimson Pinot Noir from Ata Rangi in New Zealand. I would normally go for something fuller, but at lunchtime, something light seemed more in keeping, and I do love a good pinot noir, particularly from New Zealand.

I opted for a simple dessert of a trio of sorbets (lime, lemon and pink grapefruit) served with platinum vodka. Bob Bob Ricard specialise in vodka too, so I felt it important to have a tipple. The signature chocolate glory is a must for chocaholics, and there was one at my table. It is a chocolate jivara mousse, chocolate brownie, berries and passionfruit and orange jelly served as a perfect gold ball on which warm chocolate sauce is poured, which collapses it. Very dramatic, and tasty too.

I loved it. Bob Bob Ricard is a place you go because you love to eat, and you want to be a little decadent. I am planning to go back very soon. 

I attended a press preview of the Bob Bob Ricard Sunday Roast. The Sunday Roast is available at Sunday lunch time, a 16 oz portion of USDA prime black angus with all of the trimmings costs £29.50. Opinions, photos and words are all my own as always. Of course!

The Lockhart, London

January was not a hugely successful month for dining for me. Not that I was on some dry January mission, January, of all months, needs decadence and I will never do that. I ate out a lot and had some good meals, but rarely anything exceptional. Then I went to The Lockhart and had my faith restored.

The Lockhart opened last year but not well. So they got a new chef, changed the menu, closed and worked on it before opening again in January. I was meeting two food loving friends for dinner, and booked at the last minute after one friend objected to the original reservation elsewhere. Expectations were high. Very.

The Lockhart, London

We sat by the kitchen, a bright vivid space, and watched the chefs gently choreograph our meal. Brad McDonald leads the kitchen, a well respected American chef who now cooks southern food in London. And lucky us. We ordered pretty much everything between us (the menu is not overwhelming and is perfect for this). Continue reading

House of Ho, Soho

Bobby Chin is well know for his TV exploits, however, he also owns two very well regarded restaurants in Hanoi & Saigon. Now, a third in London has been added to the list in an impressive double fronted site on Old Compton St in Soho. The official opening day  was January the 6th, although they were operating in soft launch over Christmas. I popped in earlier this week.

First impressions are good. The space is vibrant and buzzy and the menu looks promising. We started with cocktails, I had a horny devil simply because I can’t resist chilli anywhere, even in my drinks. With lemongrass vodka, Vietnamese devil’s chilli (floating menacingly on the top of the cocktail) and fresh coconut, it was fresh and sharp with a lovely gentle heat. Continue reading

St John St is a busy street, and in a very good way. Home to St John’s restaurant (from Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver), and also wine bar & restaurant Vinoteca (across the road), with Bistro Bruno Loubet (which I have eaten at 3 times but neglected to blog, a huge oversight), and The Zetter Townhouse around the corner (one of my favourite spots for drinks and bar snacks). There are lots more and I could type all day, but my point is, that this isn’t an area that has been crying out for great new restaurants. This hasn’t stopped the Hawksmoor team from taking a stab at it, and given their pedigree (I am a fan of their Hawksmoor steakhouses and bar), I was curious as to what they planned to deliver and how. I knew that this wasn’t going to be another Hawksmoor, but I was expecting it to be quite meaty. And so it was. In a very good way. Continue reading

“Square pastrami makes me so angry! I have to avoid that counter in the supermarket every time”.

An unusual conversation to be having in a park in North London, perhaps. Over a portable gas burner and a pot containing a vacuum packed bag of meat. Stranger still was that it was with a someone that I had never met before and knew vaguely only through the internet. However, I had heard great things about Jacob Harrison’s Montreal style pastrami and I had to try it. Even if that meant that we had to meet somewhere in between (to be fair, he had offered to meet me at my place and invited me over to his, but I only had an hour to spare so this was the best that we could do at the time).

Montreal smoked meat (aka pastrami) is famous. Schwartz’s Deli is a first stop for most travellers to Montreal – myself included. When I last visited and requested a sandwich, the waiter looked at me and said, “have you tried the pastrami from elsewhere?” He continued “I did and now I know why we have such long queues here.” It was so innocent and confident, yes, but deservedly so. On both of my trips to Montreal, I have eaten there.

Jacob Harrison Pastrami

Corey, the man behind Jacob Harrison, was missing it deeply. His family had a deli when he was growing up and this was his only connection, but tired of and so depressed by what we here consider pastrami, he developed his own recipe with his own spice mix, using rare UK beef. I tasted it, and not only was it fabulous, it was at least on a par with Schwartz’s. Moist and rich with fat (fat is key to flavour), it made a perfect sandwich with mustard and sourdough bread. Montreallers and pastrami passionistas, please note, Jacob Harrison’s pastrami is smoked, so it isn’t exactly like Schwartz’s, but they are not trying to copy Schwartz’s here, it is just my point of reference. Continue reading