In the heart of the trendy Marylebone High Street area, just on Marylebone Lane sits a delicious local restaurant where the food is mouth watering, the wine list perfected and the service impeccable. It isn't you average neighbourhood restaurant - it isn't tiny, retiring or quirky like a neighbourhood cafe might be. It is in actual fact part of a hotel but unless you went seeking out the bathroom you would never know this. It does not have the feel of a big hotel restaurant but it neither has an intimate ambience - what it does have is a perfectly positioned atmosphere for the clientele it attracts.
It is a friendly restaurant with a lovely bar, tables spaced perfectly apart from each other and lights dimmed jut to the right setting. The dining room has wooden floors, leather benches and artworks on the wall, accommodating for both a business clientele at lunch and for the abundance of locals and tourists alike who flock every evening. It has a menu designed to reflect seasonality of produce, which they buy as much as possible from local suppliers, meaning that the offerings change every couple of months as the seasonal foods turn. Their dishes are based on a simple food philosophy of using only the best ingredients to create simple, classic dishes. Along side the delicious plates on offer sits a lovely wine menu, with fairly priced new and old world wines on offer. The list is drawn from small and quirky independent producers as well as internationally renowned vineyards and includes some organic wines and an award winning English Sparkling Denbies Whitedowns Cuvee, perfect for accompanying many of the dishes on offer.
As with many good restaurants there is the right amount of variety to choose from but that in no way makes it any easier to pick a dish when they all sound so deliciously scrummy! For starters my friend opted for the John Ross Scottish Smoked Salmon - a real treat with generous portion size! The salmon was perfectly prepared and the accompanying fennel salad delicious (I know I tried it several times!) I opted for the Panfried Scottish Mackerel Fillet, again super tasty with perfectly pickled beetroot to accompany. This was the ideal start to what continued to be a delicious meal!Make an online booking
For main course we both plumped for herb encrusted baked haddock with mussels and potato gnocchi in a saffron and dill sauce. And we were not disappointed with this exceedingly good dish which was cooked to perfection and full of flavour.
Sadly we enjoyed our starters and mains so much that we left simply no room for desert, which of course is always a shame, especially with treats such as Warm Rococo Chocolate Brownie and Iced Orange Parfait on the menu! There was just no way we could manage it though we tucked into the scrumptious chocolates that came with the bill!
To sum up - this is a must try restaurant! If you are looking for somewhere to escape to from the busy Oxford Street crowds, then meander up Marylebone High Street and skip on to Marylebone Lane and sit down to a relaxing meal - any time of the day.