Great Queen Street
Great Queen Street, a model of sobriety dominated by those two great pillars of stuffiness,
Freemasons Hall and The Connaught Rooms (now somewhat misnomered as the "Grand Connaught
Rooms") is hardly the location that one would expect to find a real "English" bistro
serving food that is several cuts above your average pub grub or even the so-called
French bistros which you find in certain quarters of London.
The restaurant has a somewhat contrived air of a spit and sawdust eatery (with neither
spit nor sawdust, I hasten to add) and the basic furnishings, bare tables, downmarket
cutlery and glasses does nothing to reflect the high quality of the cuisine that
lies behind this enterprise. Serving wine in a small tumbler the size of which is
just about big enough to dissolve a packet of Beecham's Powders does the wine a great
disservice. We were told that the better wines were served in real stemware but when
we saw them I wasn't really convinced that I would want to drink a 60 quid bottle
of wine in them either. We found the best compromise was to order the House wine
and then ask for real glasses to which our waitress happily obliged.
The real skills in the cuisine, overseen by owner-chef Tom Norrington-Davies, are
the flavours that are produced. In almost every dish the kitchen manages to extract
oodles of exciting, tasty flavours that titillate the palate .But it's not the arty
stuff that is a picture on a plate. No this is shear WYSIWYG - no frills. For example,
when your order a wood pigeon - you get a wood pigeon - a whole one with no concession
to making it easy for you to cut it up and eat it - a real struggle. (A sharp knife
might also help). But the dish, accompanied by braised peas and bacon was perfectly
cooked (at least for me - pink) and a perfect accompaniment. The only query perhaps
was, was this the right time of the year to serve wood pigeon? It was a bit on the
tough side. I always thought that October was the best time. Similarly, struggling
through dissecting a delicious whole crab began to get tiresome whilst your fellow
diners had long finished their meal.
A lot of the cuisine is based on slow cooked items such as daubes and stews but there
are also some à la minute dishes. Most dishes have extremely interesting combinations
of flavours and in the main they work. At lunch, which is marginally less elaborate
than dinner, you could have snails, garlic and wild barley followed by fried pig's
cheek with sticky red onions and my aforementioned crab expedition was followed by
a daube of Hereford beef in an extremely tasty red wine sauce. Lamb shoulder with
haricot beans is another mainstay of the establishment.
Whilst at lunch time there may be more emphasis on "business" type lunches, dinner
is altogether more clubby. The bare floorboards and low ceiling make the overall
noise pretty unbearable at times, especially if you might happen to sit at the next
table to a quintet of braying females. But your intolerance is surely tempered by
perfectly cooked lemon sole with gentleman's relish, venison with mashed celeriac
or escalope of English veal, sage and lemon. Some menu descriptions can be pretty
stark - "asparagus" for example or "smallish globe artichokes with vinaigrette" and
we could imagine the WYSIWYG effect on these. Some dishes are meant for communal
eating - Chicken Pie for two (unless you are Desperate Dan), rib of Hereford beef
for two and seven hour lamb shoulder and boulangère potatoes for four or five. Vegetables
are pretty sparse and priced quite steeply extra. On the two occasions we went there
there was only a choice of greens and new potatoes - not really very inspiring.
Desserts are well made but tend to be a bit on the heavy side. A prune and Armagnac
turnover probably could have done with a bit more Armagnac, but then this is a wine
oriented website review!
The wine list seems to be in a constant state of flux as many of the wines we ordered
were out of stock. We should have loved to have tried the Terodelgo Rotalino but
that was out of stock and so was the Bandol we ordered as an alternative, so we settled
for one of the House reds, a Douro Vinha da Palestra 2008. which was acceptable.
Acceptable, too was the St. Chinian, Les Pradelles 2009, but it's certainly not the
wine list (or the wine service) that one would go here for.
Prices are on the whole pretty reasonable for both food and wine (although the extras
for potatoes and/or vegetables at £3.80 a pop can make this deceptive) - lunch dishes
run from £5 to around £15 whilst dinner can rack up to £24 a head for the Hereford
beef, for example.
On the whole, this is a good place to find in a location that boasts of many mediocre
establishments and the tasty cuisine and casual atmosphere makes for a jolly experience
if you can stand the noise!
Restaurant Ratings
Food 43
Wine List 14
Service 7
Ambience 5
Value for money 10
Total 79
(For an explanation of the ratings - click here)
Great Queen Street: 32 Great Queen Street, London WC2 B5AA
Tel: 020 7242 0622
Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 12:00 to 2:30, Monday to Saturday 6:00 to 10:30
Credit Cards: All major
Service: Not included
