December 2021
I have been dining at Richard Corrigan restaurants for a very long time, starting at Lindsay House in Soho, before following him to his self-named Mayfair restaurant and countless visits to his fish eatery Bentley’s in Piccadilly. I have enjoyed many great meals and have been very fortunate to meet the man himself, as well some of his head chefs along the way. Once again we were gifted some vouchers for Daffodil Mulligan by family, however due to the pandemic- we only got around to visiting the restaurant in December 2021.
We attended on a Tuesday evening, getting a train down to Farringdon Station and the restaurant was a very straight forward 20-minute walk. We had inadvertently entered the building via the bar entrance, which was on the far side of the dining area and enabled bar guests to visit without disturbing the seated diners. We saw where the main entrance was and quietly moved across to the waiting staff stood by the front door. The restaurant was busy with lots of large groups which was to be expected in Christmas party season. It is not a huge restaurant with the seating designed in an ‘L’ shape, around the open kitchen and downstairs bar. We were sat on a small table in close proximity to the kitchen with chefs managing a wood fired oven which was both impressive to watch and inhale.
Our waiter left menus with us and we perused the options whilst taking in the surroundings. Initially, we felt like we had been forgotten but after around 10 minutes our waiter returned and took our drinks order alongside our food options. The menu concept is one for sharing, where diners are recommended to select one option each from: Raw, Small Plates and Large Plates. We only chose Bread from the raw, Pig Cheek Skewers and Beef Short Rib from the small plates and Sugar Pit Pork and Over Embers Lamb from the large plates. I tried a pint of the Rye River Pale Ale to start, which is from a brewery just outside of Dublin in County Kildare- pleasant easy drinking beer. Natalie settled for water and I also ordered a carafe of Malbec to enjoy with the meal.
Despite my initial concerns around the service, we received our bread alongside our drinks quite swiftly. The bread was two pieces of Soda and two of Sourdough- for those familiar with Richard Corrigan, his soda bread is something of a trademark- especially at Bentleys. As expected, the soda bread was the star, and it was accompanied by homemade butter. Shortly after the Beef Short Rib and Pig Cheek Skewers arrived. Natalie’s Pig Cheek Skewers was served with brown crab and a ‘chip shop’ curry. The dish was superb, the curry sauce certainly had a familiarity of the ‘chip shop’ but had more heat to it, the pig cheek was suitably tender and flavoursome. My Beef Short Rib was served on toast accompanied by gherkin ketchup and blue cheese- it was absolutely delicious although Natalie thought the bread was slightly burnt, I hadn’t picked up on this, but she is very sensitive to that particular taste.
Whilst waiting for the main course, I tasted the Malbec and was suitably impressed as it had good body and given the cost of £20, excellent value for money in London. Our mains arrived; Natalie’s Over Embers Lamb was served with a shepherd’s pie croquette and courgette- it was a very nice dish with the croquette being a triumph. My dish of Sugar Pit Pork came with a prawn spring roll and sour lime dressing. This was fantastic, the sour lime dressing was very hot but once shared out across the dish (and not tried on its own) worked very well. We had got side dishes of bone marrow mash (fantastic) chips (good) and courgettes with pine nuts (tasty).
Although satisfied, we did choose to look at the dessert menu. I always tend to ask the waiter for their recommendation with the flourless chocolate cake and olive oil ice cream being advised the best options. We went with this and were both very pleased with the choices. The cake was very indulgent and the olive oil ice cream very different with it having a savoury and sweet taste but a good experience all the same.
We asked for the bill and gave over our voucher- the entire meal came to £175 which we thought was extremely good value considering the quality of the food and that we were in London. My only criticism of the service is that I would have liked the drinks order taken earlier but otherwise the service was great.
Food 4/5
Drink 4/5
Service 4/5
Value for Money 4/5
Comments