My lovely wife and i decided to try "Wild Honey" for one of our occasional date nights. We have tried just about everywhere in Notting Hill so it made a nice change to dress up a little and go out for an up scale meal. The restaurant was very quiet when i first entered at 7PM but by the time we left it was absolutly packed. I had a highly competent martini whilst I waited for my wife to arrive.
The menu was looked good though I was more struck by the mains than the starters. My wife had a lovely unctuous veloute whilst I went for a bean and morel mushroom salad. It was tasty but I probably could have managed with just my main. To follow my wife had lovely Label Anglais roast chicken whilst I went for the signature Boullabaise. This came deconstructed style so you sort of assemble it yourself. The fish was absolutely beautiful, matched with a lovely soup. My one observation would be that it is quite a large dish to eat and by the time I got down to finishing my little saucepan of soup it had gone tepid. A cover for the dished would really have helped keep it all warm. It came with plentiful croutons and rouille.
We felt it silly to skip desert and my wife had a plum panacota whilst I went for the wild honey ice cream. Both were delicious and a great way to finish off a lovely meal. One great point of difference with this restaurant is they do nearly all there wines by the 250ml carafe. This is a real bonus and meant I could try some more unusual wines and match wines to each course. They even did 50ml taster measures of desert wine. Service was friendly and relatively informal which makes a nice difference to a lot of Mayfair restaurants which can be stuffy.
We had a really nice time and though the place isn't cheap I thought for the standard of food we had it was excellent value. We will definitely go back and I am now keen to try "Arbutus"
Monday, August 24, 2009
Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 8