The service:
We were (this seems to be an ongoing theme with us– but it’s not our fault, this time! The theatre was half an hour late in starting. And we called!) late. We’d called ahead, but someone didn’t take the message– we’d been told on the phone that the kitchen would close at 10:30, and when we arrived at 10:20, they said it was closed, but “they’d see what they could make for us”.

In the end, it turned out all right– the head chef hadn’t left, the grill had just started to be cleaned, and they were willing to serve us everything they still had left, which included:

The Food:
Our first starter was beef carpaccio, one of my old tried and true favourites. The beef was a little thick, so you didn’t have that lovely flavour of a whispering moo– there was COW in your mouth. And not in a bad way, either. Although it was a bit on the cold side– which was too bad as it was rather fresh and the flavour was good.

The second starter shone through, though– three scallops of increasing size which were so fresh I thought they might cling to the plate. They were grilled to perfection: buttery smooth texture and full of flavour, and capped with American style streaky bacon, which was a nice touch, although it reminded me of the own-brand supermarket bacon I grew up with.

Mains included a 300g steak of beef tenderloin which, remarkably for a British restaurant, came rare as it was ordered– and it stood up well to it. It came with stunningly lovely mash on the side which was creamy, with some chunks, and delicious, if a bit on the scalding side– I suspect the mash had been put in the cooler and then brought back to temperature in the microwave but, then, we were nearly 25 minutes late.

My main was half a roast chicken. This is my test dish, and it was done right: The dark meat was cooked all the way through and the breast was moist and juicy. Delicious and– thankfully– unsalted frites on the side along with a slightly too moist (for me) cole slaw (although when in Rome, have your cabbage swimming in mayonnaise).

Pudding, on the other hand, while nice, was a bit of a disapointment. Blueberry pie was on offer with ice cream (they offered us our choice of chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry– really? Does anyone want anything other than vanilla ice cream with pie?). The ice cream was quite good, and the pie, which tasty, came in a bit on the lacking side– the filling had loads of flour in it and was almost like a thick blueberry cake. Not bad, just not what either of us were expecting, at all.

The Wine
Chateau Naudon Bordeaux Superieur 2005. Classic, old-world style Bordeaux, at £23. Nice, drinkable, went well with both chicken and beef. Pretty much what you look for with a mid-priced wine. The list overall looked pretty OK– a decent mixture of wine at decent prices– the most expensive thing on it was like £35, although the low end was filled with new world style buzzwords like “jammy” and “fruit-forward”, which put me off a bit (though it did get an extra £8 out of me for the wine).