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[Liverpool] London Carriage Works


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Even though it’s less than an hour away, we don’t know Liverpool well. So, we enjoyed the walk from the car park to Hope Street – lots of seemingly Georgian buildings – we’ll come back and have a proper nosy around the area. The Hope Street Hotel is, however, very modern. The bar area had a nice buzz and we liked the restaurant space. Modern; comfy seating, good sized tables set sufficiently apart that we didn’t feel we were part of someone else’s conversation. The menu read well – again, modern but nothing wacky. This sounded like food you were going to want to get stuck into. Unfortunately, it just missed out.

A lentil and vegetable soup was simple, straightforward and comforting. A fairly clear broth with lentils, carrot and celery. Just the sort of thing you’d want if you were just recovering from the flu. My pearl barley risotto had lots of little nuggets of “al dente” fennel and courgette which contrasted well with the fairly soft barley. So, good on texture but underwhelming on flavour – courgettes are never going to be good at this time of year and, somehow, the fennel had lost all semblance of aniseed flavour. An almost, but not quite, saving grace was the presence of truffle oil which added some earthiness.

I enjoyed my main though. Gressingham duck breast came with a pink grapefruit sauce – nicely sharper than the classic bitter orange. Came with a “gateau” of pressed winter vegetables – thin slices of several veg (turnip being the predominant flavour), blanched and then stacked up and heated through to brown the top – and some tiny leeks. This was bang on cooking in my mind – and it’s the food I love to eat.

The other main was a smoked haddock risotto. Good flakes of fish, some leeks, cabbage, mascarpone and parmesan. Pleasant enough but underseasoned. And a tiny portion.

We didn’t bother with dessert but ordered espresso – served weak and lukewarm.

Service had been good from the several members of the young crew who attended our table. Whilst there was a good selection of wines by the glass, half bottles seemed highly marked up.

John Hartley

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  • 2 years later...

So decided to give this place a go having walked past loads of times, took Mrs H along at teatime for the £20 for 3 courses offer, bar and room are smart, Mrs H unsure about glass "features" dividing lobby from restaurant but I liked them, each to their own I suppose.

Drinks in the bar to kick off - where we were well looked after by friendly young staff (as we were throughout), made our choices and moved into the dining room, it was early doors due to the offer being from erm 5 till 6.30 ish and to be fair the room started to fill up as we tucked into our starters, We were drinking a Viognier which was french £25ish and enjoyable.

Mrs H went for the mushroom soup which was "nice", I had a pigs cheek on some cauliflower puree and something else I cant remember, looked very pretty (can a pigs cheek look pretty?? -this one did did to me) and tested better. Onto the mains I had hake on lentils, chicken breast and butterbeans for Mrs H, as I am greedy we had some chunky chips which were lovely, Mrs H declared her chicken "nice", the fish and lentil dish was really well put together and just delicious.

I had the cheese and Mrs H had the sticky toffee pudding which was "excellent" - all in all we had a great time the cooking was as good as I have had in Liverpool, We'll be going again.

Edited by codheadred (log)
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  • 11 months later...

I had a decent lunch here last week.

I have eaten here maybe four or five times, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

This and the time previous were in the good category and both times on the set menu.

To start - boneless quail

Quail.jpg

Main - pork cutlet, parsnip puree, radishes, broccoli and apple. (Some back of the spoon parsnip puree action for fans)

Pork.jpg

There was a £1.50 supplement for the quail making lunch £16.50.

Not bad value.

Martin

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