One Leicester Street - Soft opening - 26 April 2013

I received an invitation to the soft opening of the restaurant "One Leicester street" where all food was half price at lunch and dinner during their first opening week. The chef is Tom Harris who held a michelin star last year when the restaurant was called "St John Chinatown".

We arrived at the hotel/restaurant via chinatown and was ushered into a rather small and intimate dining room. Muted colours and a cosy feeling all around.
The menu was small but interesting and the service friendly. The menu is designed so you can either share lots of plates or do a standard 2/3 course meal. My hubby is not the sharing kind so we went with our own 3 courses :-)

As a starter i went for "Crab, fennel & monk's beard" which was light and fresh with a crab salad on top of a thin and crispy sourdough bread. The fennel complimented the crab and there was also a smear of what i think was taramasalata or some sort of roe which added some saltiness to the sweet crab.
My husband had a starter of Razor clams with samphire salad which tasted really nice and fresh (i managed to sneak a bite from his plate).


 

 

 



My main was "Pollock with grilled escarole and anchovy" - the fish was poached and served with the cooked escarole (a kind of lettuce). It was nice but needed a crunch of something - and i could not taste the anchovy.

Hubby had smoked Dexter beef which is a bit like salt beef, with textures of beetroot and horseradish and some watercress garnish.

 

The dessert was my favorite "Salted Caramel, Apple and Hazelut". It was made of a salted caramel parfait with "sheets" of crisp hazelnut macaron shells with a garnish of dried apple slices, dollops of caramel and caramellized hazelnuts. Sweet and indulgent! Could have done with a bit of colour on the plate buy hey, i am not complaining!

 

All in all, interesting food but a slightly underwhelming dining room - not enough wow factor for me. With the 50% discount it was however really good value for money and i might go back if that offer came up again.