Pre-Fixe Lunch Recommendations in London?

[stealw]

I'll be going to London quite soon, well end of May for a few days.

Does anyone have any good pre-fixe menu type restaurants that they recommend? Either lunch or dinner, price range up to around 30#/pound.

Was thinking dining at:

Maze-Gordon Ramsey, 4 course- 28.50 pounds. Though no real experience on how they are.

also

Number Twelve

http://www.numbertwelverestaurant.co.uk/

3course for ~16, not sure who the chef/owners are, but upon some research quite popular and very reasonable

Thanks in advance,

Jim

Edited May 3, 2008 by stealw (log)

[Roger le goéland]

If you can stretch to £34, the Aubergine set lunch is pretty awesome - enormous amounts of delicious French/classical food, very decent wine included (as well as Evian), enough petits fours to fill a box and take home... not quite innovative though. And it will definitely take longer than "one hour".

[chefsimon]

Foliage Mandarin oriental £29 4 courses, went again on saturday, very very good

[Man]

Number Twelve

http://www.numbertwelverestaurant.co.uk/

3course for ~16, not sure who the chef/owners are, but upon some research quite popular and very reasonable

Thanks in advance,

Jim

←

The Head Chef at Number Twelve is Santino Busciglio. I like his cuisine a lot. It has an Italian influence and style, but it's not Italian. Quite original, really, with very feash, neat flavours.

m

[Man]

with very feash, neat flavours.

m

←

yeah, feash flavours are my favourite...also fResh.

[Jon Tseng]

Sketch lunch (lecture room) - amazing variety of doodads. Three or four mini starters, two or three mini deserts plus main course.

The Capital lunch - unlike most cheapo lunches they offer a decent number of choices - five or six for each course. And they serve on Sat and Sun.

Gavroche set lunch is slightly out of the price range at 48 quid but includes half a bot of decent wine plus mineral water and is excellent.

Edited May 3, 2008 by Jon Tseng (log)

[TomHall]

Foliage Mandarin oriental £29 4 courses, went again on saturday, very very good

←

I went a couple of saturdays back and wasn't overly impressed. Nice enough but a little boring. Terrible coffee as well.

[thom]

Gavroche set lunch is slightly out of the price range at 48 quid but includes half a bot of decent wine plus mineral water and is excellent.

←

Definitely worth the stretch if you can. I broke my Gavroche duck with the set lunch some weeks and it featured immaculate cooking (mhmmm rolled lamb belly) sterling service and was excellent value.

You also get breads galore, amuse bouche and petit fours and coffee thrown in, and a choice of three dishes per course. Choice of wines is spot on too - no mucking around with half bottles or palming off on the bottom end of the wine list.

In fact it was so good that I'm back there this week with my better half in tow. Though going to a restaurant where jackets are absolutely required still makes me feel like I am dressing up as a grown-up...

Cheers

Thom

[sunbeam]

Foliage and No12 both very good for the money. No12 can be a bit empty at lunch time tho

S

[alex chef]

Had the set lunch at the Capital last week, excellent value for money, the service was superb. Highly recommended, £29 for three courses.

[Bridgemo]

Lunch at Wild Honey was delicious, and came to £70 for two: three courses, two caraffes of (not inexpensive) wine, coffees and service. I find this incredible for Mayfair, and although portions were small, we were fully satisfied.

[nikkib]

Maze is well worth it as is Petrus @ £30.00. The capital on a sunday is lovely - again £30.00 for 3 courses (+amuse bouche etc) but very little cheap wine( as in next to nothing under £30.00 although there are several btg) Arbutus/Wild Honey and L'autre Pied all come in way under budget and are also well worth a visit, as is Theo randall @ intercontinental which does a set lunch for about £21. L'atelier downstairs is doing a £19 2 course and about £25 3 course and the menu looked vey good indeed when i walked past the other day. Happy eating!

Edited May 15, 2008 by nikkib (log)

[dharold]

another vote for Sketch

and am I alone in enjoying the lunch at l'escargot?

[Siharris28]

another vote for Sketch

and am I alone in enjoying the lunch at l'escargot?

←

Had a few prix-fixe pre-theatres at L'Escargot, used to be very good, but service on the last visit was appalling and has put me off returning.

[dharold]

Number Twelve

http://www.numbertwelverestaurant.co.uk/

3course for ~16, not sure who the chef/owners are, but upon some research quite popular and very reasonable

Thanks in advance,

Jim

←

The Head Chef at Number Twelve is Santino Busciglio. I like his cuisine a lot. It has an Italian influence and style, but it's not Italian. Quite original, really, with very feash, neat flavours.

m

←

Located in the refurbed Ambassadors hotel Twelve is a nice looking place, if a bit bland - very modern. Service was sharp though and the place was nearly full at lunch. Dishes were well explained and wines were reasonably priced.

The important bit: the food was excellent. I mean really very impressive for a place that's not really cropped up on anyone's cool list. I started with tuna, very lightly seared on the edges but mostly raw. The fish was high quality and the execution and presentation very accomplished. Pork belly main was better still. I love pork belly and this played to the dishes strengths; crisp where needed, butter soft elsewhere. Delicious. Desert was a neat semifredo.

Edited May 27, 2008 by dharold (log)

[stealw]

Went to Twelve about two weeks ago. Went around pre-theatre time, place was virtually empty beside a table or two (on a Friday). Started first off with linguini and simple tomato sauce, entree was a roasted baby chicken and I too also finished off with a semi-fredo.

Appetizer and dessert faired fairly well, though entree (roasted baby chicken) was relatively dry. I a long with three others ordered the same and all had an unpleasant experience with it.

They had, if my memory serves me right 3 "servers/runners" and the manager who also worked the floor. All but the manager was quite hard to communicate with due to slight language barrier (I spoke english). Each server attended to our table at random various times making it kind of confusing to ask specifically one person for help or anything.

Also, found out through the manager that night that the chef had taken the night off, perhaps letting the line cooks with a sous to fend for themselves. Quite taken back I was considering it was a Friday.

[Matthew Grant]

If you think most head chefs are in the kitchen on a Friday and Saturday I think you may be disappointed. Put another way, if you were the boss and were setting up the rota, what would be your preferred days off

[salutistagolosa]

if it is not too late: Latium in Berners street, has lunch at a steal at 15.50 for two courses and £19.50 for three. At dinner, two courses at 24.50, and three courses at 28.50, including canapes.

[Roger le goéland]

Thought I'd bump this thread as visited Le Gavroche on Friday.

Possibly because I booked just an hour in advance, and because it was the end of the lunch shift, and because I had high expectations but it really wasn't that special. Food was similar to what you can get in a good French ski resort. The petits fours were the highlight of the meal, although the sauce was pretty awesome.

I will not be going again, at least not until I can afford the dinner regularly as well as the wines that ought to go with it.

[dharold]

The workshop of Joël Robuchon could just have easily been called the 'theatre' so engaging is the view into the kitchen from the counter where I ate my set lunch, currently just £25 for three courses, recently reduced from £35.

I ordered a glass of decent enough champagne (Bruno Paillard, £10) while I waited for my first course, a pigeon terrine. Usually I could care less about pigeon but some intuition guided me and I'm glad for it. Really excellent and the standout of the meal. Not that there was anything at all to fault with the middle course of poultry with roast potatoes, lettuce and the legendary Robuchon mash potato, (served in it's own cast iron dish). It was just fractionally less delicious.

Desert was a mouse of pistachio and chocolate served with pastry sticks (gold topped) and chocolate ice cream. Lovely to look at and even better to eat.

This meal cost just over £40 inc. service. Add in the fun of watching the kitchen in full flow and this is a great bargain.

[Toufas]

need more recommendations!

[Siharris28]

Foliage Mandarin oriental £29 4 courses, went again on saturday, very very good

←

Went today, superb. Great value, delicious food, thought the portions were generous as well given the price. Decent wine with it as well. Only slight complaint was the £30 for a kir royale and house champagne, which I thought was a bit steep.

Will definitely be back to do that again.