We’re off to Surbiton looking at houses. After wandering
around for a while we fetch up at the Queen’s Promenade by the river, and then
pop into Hart’s Boatyard for a
drink. The menu here looks quite interesting, but we are booked into The French Table, so we just have
a glass of wine.
Our table is booked for 1.30pm, because they couldn’t offer
us anything earlier, and when we arrive the place is packed. Maybe it’s because
it is a Saturday, though we couldn’t book a table at all on Friday. They must
be doing something right.
We look at the menus - £23.50 for two courses, £28.50 for
3. We normally discount the tasting
menu, but as it is just £32 for 5 courses and it looks very interesting we
decide to plump for it. We also order a bottle of Sicilian Grillo at £23,
rather than go for the paired wines, which would have been £23 each.
The wine comes at once, closely followed by an amuse bouche
of deep-fried eel on spiced pumpkin. Quite fishy, but very good. The first of the 5 courses arrives soon after
– scallops in a shell, topped with chorizo crust, with cauliflower and seaweed
chutney. This is amazing. The crust is crumbly with a kick, the scallops (2) just
right and the seaweed a novel taste. Maybe you could argue that the crust overpowered
the scallops, but that would be being picky.
The second course is a change from that advertised – we had
been warned in advance. Described as a “ballotine”
of foie gras, it was a round slice of paté wrapped in crushed mushrooms, and
supported by roast fig and piccalilli, with a streak of port sauce. This
replaced a rabbit terrine with foie gras and ham hock, which may have had more
interesting textures, but was more than acceptable.
We’re relaxing into the atmosphere now, confident that the
coming dishes will also be tasty. There’s a good satisfied buzz around the busy
room and, despite the table being quite close together, no overly loud guests. There is some background music, but playing so
softly as to be hard to identify.
Next up is hake on coco beans (nope, me neither) with crispy
fried samphire and a lobster sauce. The sauce smells gorgeous, the hake is
nicely judged with a slightly crispy top and the samphire really fun. It’s not
a big portion, as you might expect in a tasting menu, but very good indeed.
We order another bottle, and the friendly waitress stops for
a little chat, asking whether we’d been before. Apparently they have been going
for 18 years, and you can tell why. The owner Eric Guignard still runs the
kitchen and has resisted opening up other branches.
Our conversation is cut short when the beef course arrives. Three pieces of medium rare beef come with
some creamy, cheese and garlic mash (pomme
aligot), girolles and a madeira sauce. The beef is simply excellent, tender and
so full of flavour.
Desserts arrive at the table to one side of us, one of them
accompanied with a candle, and “Happy Birthday,
Dean” piped in chocolate around the rim of the plate. Later we see similar plates arrive at other
tables – it’s certainly a good place for a celebration – and the table on our
other side pays partially with a £50 gift voucher, a lovely gift I would
imagine.
Our final course is chocolate soufflé with vanilla parfait (you
could order an extra course of cheese for £12, but we don’t do that). Normally I’m not that bothered with chocolate
desserts, but this is stunning. The soufflé has a lovely crust and a melting
interior; the parfait is covered in nutty chocolate. Nothing to fault at all –
parfait indeed.
Although outside the restaurant had looked very attractive,
surrounded in greenery, inside it is much more restrained. The décor is a pale
grey, with a number of fairly unremarkable pictures, and basically it is simply
a long rectangular room. The back of the restaurant is made lighter by skylights,
and the bar doesn’t intrude. So you don’t go for the decoration – but with food
this good, you don’t need any distraction.
With a bottle of sparkling water (!) and service, the bill
is £128. It has been one of the top meals of our year, up with Chez Bruce, our favourite. It regularly features in OpenTable’s list of
top 10 London restaurants, and in their “best service” listings. We’d highly recommend it, and it certainly
helped B become happier with the idea of moving to Surbiton!
