I’ve had this place on my list forever, and finally someone less lazy than me had the wherewithal to make a reservation (not easy). We were a party of four, and swept the first two menu categories. To whit:
Whitefish croquettes (excellent, with a semi-fiery sauce), sourdough bread, grilled oysters with chartreuse hollandaise. I prefer raw oysters, generally, and I have no idea where they’re getting the chartreuse, but these were pretty good, if a little heavy for a starter.
Squid and scallion skewers, beautiful fresh sauce and excellent smoky grilledness.
Trout, firm, saline, generally excellent. With husk cherries (detectable), uni (not detectable), and some kind of citrus-y foamy stuff.
Eel, leeks and gribiche. I thought this was terrific, a real “I’ve never had anything quite like this” moment. The rest of the table was like, meh.
Tuna tartare, which never really blows me away (I’m jaded), especially when it’s this crazy salty. It’s pretty, though.
Clams prepared like escargots. These were very nice, but they also seemed like something I could make myself, so I wasn’t all that impressed.
Cabbage with mussels and horseradish, the closest thing we had to a vegetable-forward dish, and the menu could use more of them. I was starting to get logy. Grilled cabbage is always a good idea, because it caramelizes so beautifully, and the horseradish added a bracing note.
What we all came for - the fish and chips. As crispy, flaky and delicious as advertised. Also? Not enough fries. I think we each got two. And they were very good fries.
Dessert, finally! The other thing we all came for - sticky toffee pudding. We got two orders, just to be safe, but we needn’t have bothered. No skimping on this - a huge slab.
And something vaguely virtuous, the poached pear with lemon posset and meringue. Posset is really pudding. Pudding is really cake.
I can barely move, now.
