Pollen Street Social - 22 February 2013

I have tried to book Pollen Street Social a few times in the past 12 months but never with any luck.. probably because it has mostly been on a spur of a moment and all tables have been booked out.

Since it was my husbands birthday i was a bit more organised and managed to to book a table 6 weeks prior - finally!

Pollen Street Social is the restaurant of Jason Atherton who used to head up Maze for Gordon Ramsey before he left to set up Pollen Street Social. I loved Maze when Jason was in charge - i went back again after he left and the food was not as good, so i was really excited about finally having a table at Pollen St!

We arrived a bit early and had a glass of champagne in the small bar area. Jason came out of the kitchen and walked around and greeted guests - nice touch! The restaurant is quite large and very busy, it is not the usual quiet experience you have when visiting a michelin starred restaurant but i quite liked the brasserie style atmosphere.

We had a nice corner table and were served some appetizers: Green queen olives, pork crackling with apple sauce and cod brandade.. not sure about the cod - very strong in flavour and did not really go with the rest of the "tapas" style dishes.

There was a choice of white or brown bread - the brown was very tasty but i would have expected a few more interesting choices when at a restaurant like this.
So, what about food? Well, I started with a dish that was called "Cornish crab vinaigraite, nashi pear, cauliflower sweet and sour dressing and peanut powder" It was beautiful and had amazing flavours. The crab worked so well with the nashi pear and the pickled cauliflower was lovely and had just the right amount of sweet and sour. There were also some cauliflower puree which added and extra dimension.

For main i had the "Turbot with clam chowder" - a perfectly cooked piece of fish with a very light clam chowder (poured at the table) served with potatoes on the side. It was really lovely but i have to say that my husbands lamb with a truffle puree was lovely too.. i do love truffle and it went so well with his perfectly cooked lamb.

So, desserts, we decided to share 2 desserts and went for "Lemon & White chocolate ganache, carrot cake, basil ash meringue & basil puree"

It looked spectacular but didn't deliver on flavour. Yes - it was nice but i expected a bit more to be honest. The lemon was slightly over powering and the carrot cake was lacking a little bit in flavour.

The second dessert we had i loved. it was the "PBJ" Peanut parfait, Cherry & Yuzu sorbet and Nitro peanut. Loved this! Great flavours that worked so well together.. and i loved the nitro peanut.

I will definately be back again.. would like to try the lunch offer which is a great deal at £27.50 for 3 courses. Jason is also opening a new restaurant in Soho later this spring. To be called "Social Eating House".