Hampton Court bistro – new incarnation

We’re meeting D for lunch in Hampton Court and have yet to decide exactly where.  So we take a look at the menu for the Mitre first (we went there back in July).  The riverside terrace is still closed after the floods and the restaurant menu doesn’t look that special. So we turn our attention to the Mute Swan, now occupying the space where Blubeckers used to be.

Their website describes it as 'English-dining-pub-meets-wine-bar', whatever that means.  We sit in the downstairs “bar” ( as opposed to the tablecloths upstairs), which is all stripped pine and eclectic chairs.  They’ve moved the bar to the other side of the room from before, but the central spiral staircase to the restaurant  and loos is still there.

There are specials on the board – mains, bar snacks (interesting-sounding, with black pudding scotch eggs),  wines and beers (a good range for real ale drinkers).  Service is very attentive, so we get “quick wine” – a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc at £18 – and have to send them away a couple of times before ordering food because we’re gossiping too much.

When I do go to the bar to order, I decide to move on to a French Marsanne Viognier at £19. For starters, D has the chicken liver pate with an odd-sounding rhubarb, apple and ginger chutney. This came as two good-sized slices of coarse pate,  and D thought the chutney was fine. B has seared  scallops with chorizo chips, with some mushy sauce – tasty, well-cooked scallops. My choice is the char sui pork belly which comes with pickled ginger salad. This is served as three attractively displayed chunks of meat surrounded by sauce and salad – very good.

The main course options are a combination of pub classics such as sausage and mash, steaks, and haddock and chips, and some more adventurous dishes like calves liver “saltimbocca”, spicy Vietnamese king prawn and rice noodle salad and open vegetable samosa.   D plays safe with smoked haddock and salmon fishcakes and a side order of mixed vegetables (a rather tedious standard selection).  OK but nothing special.  B goes for the prawn salad which comes with toasted cashew nuts, lime and chilli dressing – very nice, good-sized prawns, with some flavour, crispy noodles and interesting salad.  My five-spiced duck from the specials menu, also came with ginger (well, I like it) but was otherwise rather dry and uninteresting.

We finish off sharing a pudding plate of chocolate and hazelnut tart, salted caramel ice cream, lemon and passion fruit meringue and orange polenta cake, which was the highlight.  It seems we had 3 bottles of Viognier, taking the bill to a tad over £150. Service has been very friendly and attentive, so it was generally a pleasant lunch – maybe not one to win awards, but fine if you’re in the area. (It seems I said much the same about Blubeckers!).