Keepers House, Peyton & Byrne, Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

Keepers House, Peyton & Byrne, Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

25/02/2014

www.keepershouse.org.uk

She said: When I heard of a dedicated vegetarian menu every Tuesday at the Royal Academy’s new restaurant I immediately booked a table for the opening night. The sensation of walking through the Academy courtyard long after the galleries have closed is truly magical. A modest door to the side of the main entrance and a trip down an inconspicuous flight of stairs revealed a warren of rooms including a buzzing, cosy bar and a sleek, contemporary dining space. We were shown to our table and presented with a glass of champagne each which got me very excited about the culinary wonders to come. The vegetarian set menu, at £35 per head, was essentially a series of six small plates with mostly earthy tasting vegetables presented as works of art. The food did indeed look beautiful and tasted very fresh and I really liked the fact it wasn’t soaked in oils or powdered with salt which so many other places do. We were able to take our time over each course and enjoy the setting. I did enjoy the experience but at the same time don’t think I would go back. Each course was interesting, enjoyable and contrasted nicely between them; the service was good; the price okay for the setting and specialist nature of the evening but it didn’t blow me away. These days, vegetarian food does blow your mind and there was something just a bit too purist about the food here. It’s a bit like watching a technically brilliant ballet dancer but not connecting with the story she’s telling. Anyway, in short, check it out once.

He said: The waiter should only ever approach my table with small plates of cutesy nosh when it’s Chef sending it for free to keep us calm between courses. If it’s actually meant to be one of the courses then my mood blackens instantly, just like the skies over Wimbledon on an English summer’s day. That kind of refinement (‘my cooking is so amazing that you only need a spoonful because it will knock you off your chair and you won’t be able to eat more once you’re on the floor’) is entirely lost on me. Maybe I’m just a brute. Or maybe years of eating spicy curry and chugging whisky has numbed my taste buds to anything but slap-you-in-the-face flavours. Whatever it is, there is nothing I dislike more in a restaurant than tiny portions. All that alchemy from Keeper’s House, the heirloom carrots, the foamy this and that’s, might have been genius, but the first thing on my mind is not that Chef is the Caravaggio of Carrots, but that some miserly bean-counter has decreed that for the business to succeed each diner must be served no more than 127 micrograms of potatoes and one iota of polenta. For me going out to eat is as much about the generosity, the devil-may-care abundance, as it is about the skill. I want to go in hungry, and I want to come out satiated; obviously I’d like to experience awesome flavours, etc. but the priorities will forever be in that order. There are some good things about Keeper’s House, and the cooking might be one of them, but you’ll have to read what She said to find out about that. I did like the location of Keeper’s House, and that it offers a veggie tasting menu. But if eating at the Royal Academy I will always opt for the much more interesting space of The Restaurant and its more laid back, more generous cooking.

Truc Vert, 42 North Audley Street, W1K 6ZR

Truc Vert, 42 North Audley Street, W1K 6ZR

18/02/2014

www.trucvert.co.uk

She said: He often says ‘why don’t we ever go back to places we like’, Truc Vert is case and point. We visited this neighbourhood French restaurant a few years ago and absolutely loved it; beautifully presented food that was equally amazing to taste. We thought we’d found a winner. Fast forward to my discount restaurant card running out and picking Truc Vert because it accepts the card and it’s as if the Truc Vert we knew and loved had been replaced by an offensively poor impostor. I can only guess it has changed hands because from the second we walked in, something wasn’t right. The service was friendly which made if difficult to give genuine feedback when asked a number of times if everything was okay. I ordered a starter of crab cakes which I saw come out of the kitchen with two other starters that made their way as far as the reception; after a confused exchange between staff, it went back to the kitchen to reappear moments later with his starter. The crab cakes were really bad. A minced medley soaking up a runny, yellow, cream sauce that made my arteries uncomfortable just looking at it. No taste. My main was a white fish, which was a good portion but again very uninteresting, to the point that I am writing the review 24 hours later and cannot remember what it actually came with and cannot be bothered to try to find out because it just doesn’t matter. I can only mourn the loss of the original, wonderful Truc Vert and as Sade said: it’s never as good as the first time. That’s why I rarely go back to re-experience a great experience.

He said: all that I’m going to say about this one is don’t go. We had a good night there a while back, but since then the management has changed. Truc Vert is now nothing short of a train wreck. A train full of children. Total tragedy. It is only a matter of time until the new owner drives this one off the cliff. It’s the Mayfair equivalent of the short-lease pizza joints near Piccadilly: fleece as many customers as possible serving them the cheapest possible sludge for the highest possible price, and then shut and move on. On the plus side this is possibly the most appropriately named restaurant: it is indeed a Truc Vert, of the kind you find up your nose and flick away.

The Gate, 51 Queen Caroline Street, London W6 9QL

The Gate, 51 Queen Caroline Street, London W6 9QL

08/02/2014

www.thegaterestaurants.com

She said: Wow. Not sure how this one slipped my radar. Playing on his iPad one day, The Gate popped up in a new restaurants section of a very old website; it’s been around forever. As a smart vegetarian restaurant and fancying myself as a smart vegetarian, we headed over to Hammersmith to see if it would offer up the stodgy stuffed vegetables and hippie food of yesteryear or something different for the hungry vegetarian (note to self: good name for a future restaurant). As we existed the tube and wandered down a road full of housing estates, we stopped outside a mental health facility sure that we were in the wrong place. We crossed the road as he consulted Google maps and I noticed ‘The Gate’ sign by a Christian church of some kind. As we approached the church and entered a gate I thought: ‘he’s going to kill me for bringing him to a canteen in a church hall run by people that are going to talk us into converting while serving us hot pot vegetable stew from a cauldron’…But as we passed a lovely courtyard and turned up some stairs, we entered a beautiful dining room in what looked like a former artist’s studio, with large industrial windows and glass ceiling, creating a lovely, bright space. I was beside myself when I got the menu. Usually I go through a process of elimination in choosing what I can eat but this is the first time in a long while that I was interested in everything. The menu offers a wide choice of creative, tasty-sounding starters, mains and desserts. After much discussion with him, I chose the Carciofini to start which was a delicately fried artichoke filled with mushrooms, served on a bed of lentils and with a garlic sauce. It was absolutely delicious. For mains I ordered the Aubergine schnitzel but I had also wanted the beetroot ravioli. After another diner received his schnitzel and I saw the massive portion which looked amazing but beyond my capabilities, I was in time to change my order to the ravioli. I did not regret this decision. A manageable portion of homemade pasta with a sweet filling offset by a tangy topping of sundried tomatoes. I really wanted to have a dessert as the many options were calling my name but I knew my stomach would not oblige so had to pass. The Gate has been a real find – probably THE find in a long time. Service was friendly and efficient, the food wonderful, the menu changes every few months, prices are reasonable and the room just lovely. I just wish it was closer to home but now I have a reason to return to Hammersmith, over and over gain. Don’t miss this one – vegetarian or not.

He said: Unless you live in that corner of London you really, really have to want to go there to find The Gate. From London’s core group of vegetarian grandes dames, this is probably the last that we tick off our list; but it’s certainly not the least. The Gate definitely rewards the determined veggie. It’s a bright, breezy haven just out-of-range of the toxic fug belched-out by the thunderous traffic chugging ceaselessly along London’s great open wound, the Hammersmith Flyover. It’s set on the upper floor of what once was a large artist’s studio, with high ceilings and loads of sky and light flooding through the massive windows. It’s decorated in a laid-back style with not a single concession to vegetarian stereotypes: no pictures of the Dalai Lama, no Peruvian horse blankets, no dream catchers, or baskets woven by Biafran street urchins. Unlike most veggie restaurants which either try too hard or try not enough, The Gate hit the cosy/stylish balance just right. The only ambiance wrong note that I can remember is the coffee machine noisily grinding away, echoing in the cathedral-like room. The totally expressionless service from our East-European waitress was charming in its own way, and certainly efficient. The food was a real surprise: full of flavour, texture and colour – it wasn’t just ‘good for vegetarian’ but good by any yardstick. How nice, for once, to go to a restaurant where the typically death-filled menu has more than just the token concession to veggies. There was certainly plenty at The Gate that I wanted to try, but I settled for the wasabi potato cake, and followed with the wild mushroom polenta: at once familiar and inventive, and very tasty. It may not be as clever and  sophisticated as nu-skool veggies like, say, Vanilla Black, but this is the kind of thing I like. Out of the London’s various non-Asian vegetarian restaurants, The Gate in Hammersmith is definitely the first one that I would go to again.

Gymkhana, 42 Albermale Street, London W1S 4JH

Gymkhana, 42 Albermale Street, London W1S 4JH

01/02/2014

www.gymkhanalondon.com

She said: Every magazine seems to have been banging on about this place. I tried booking a few days ahead a number of times in the past few months but it was always full. So I was surprised when they had a table after he called on the off-chance, 30-minutes before we were hungry. He had been much more keen than I to try out Gymkhana as I have never been able to justify paying excessive prices for Indian food offered as a morsel of what I have enjoyed in ‘normal’ Indian restaurants in London and other parts of the world. But lets move on and see what the fuss is about. Sitting very gentlemanly on the posh Albermale Street inside what looks like a former pub, the entrance level of Gymkhana was lively and noisy with diners sitting in what had an upmarket café feel. The room was bright but forgettable. However, we were taken downstairs to a darkly lit tavern looking space with days-gone-by artwork covering the walls. We opted for a set lunch menu at £20 for two courses plus the Gol Guppas from the a la carte menu, which was indulgent and unnecessary but yummy. My set starter was a ‘Duck Egg Bhurji, Lobster’ which turned out to be a rather tasteless, thin omelette with the odd bit of lobster in it. As we were sharing everything, I helped myself to his massive starter of potato chat which was delicious. After a very long wait and one reminder, my main Goan Bream arrived; a good portion and very tasty – that’s more like it. I rinsed the whole meal down with a sweet lassi which again was perfect. The set lunch option is a good way to see what Gymkhana is about. For me, it falls into the group of aspirational Indian restaurants targeted at the wealthy western set that don’t want to get their hands dirty with real Indian food. The whole experience did take an unfortunate turn when I got home and spent the rest of the day in the bathroom ‘evicting’ every milligram of my lunch, and a lot more. As he and I shared everything and he was fine, I cannot say for sure that my bathroom confinement was the result of Mayfair’s raving addition but I will not be taking any chances by returning there ever again.

He said: I work not far from this place and walked in one day, soon after the builders moved out but sometime before the official opening. Seduced by the Anglo-Indian Raj clubhouse décor, I made a note to comeback. Unfortunately Gymkhana’s PR machine went into overdrive soon after, and it was quickly declared everyone’s favourite new opening with every table booked solid for weeks. Still, one Saturday lunch we took a punt on short notice and scored a table downstairs, which made me grumble silently at first but, it turns out, has a much nicer feel than the busy and already-slightly-shabby looking main room. The lunchtime set menu is excellent value at £27 for two courses and a glass of house punch. Having been to Gymkhana’s sister restaurant in Marylebone I was primed for portions that would leave even the most anorexic supermodel feeling slightly peckish. So I was shocked to find myself defeated by a starter of potato chat that certainly would’ve been enough for four. Mains was mushroom pilau which was as good and forgettable as this dish always is, but accompanied by excellent sides (incuded) of dal and palak paneer. It was excellent value given the quality of cooking and location, for lunch. Prices rocket for dinner, at which point Gymkhana becomes, just like every other ‘Fine Indian’ around,  a blatant con.