QC Restaurant

[cappers]

There is a new restaurant in/nr the pearl building in holborn any one know what it is ?

many thanks

[circeplum]

if it's the old pearl assurance building, that would be qc at the chancery court hotel i think. it - and jun tanaka's cooking - are talked about in other threads.

it's not really new, though. where did you hear about new restaurant?

[Hallie]

I just had dinner at the QC restaurant (I know it has a name - though I can't remember it) the other week. The food, I thought was very good -especially my starter of scallops and langustines (excuse my spelling). My brain was addled by a particularly gruelling day at work so I can't at the moment recall the precise details of my main course other than it was chicken based and involved a feature I have been seeing on my plate quite frequently these days; a 'lasagnette'. A lasagnette, it seems is what we used to call an open ravioli. This particular lasagnette contained lovely, earthy truffles.

My one complaint was that the service was not up to par. Aside from four other tables, we were the only diners in the room, yet we sat with our empty plates in front of us for a good ten minutes before anyone bothered to remove them, or even came to check on us. The one thing that really lets the place down is the ambiance - morgue like chilliness; lots of marble, dauntingly high ceilings and a total lack of intimacy. Some people might go for minimalist chic (if you can call a converted corporate headquarters minimalist or chic) but frankly I'd rather dine under an army tent than in an ice palace.

Just my brash opinion .

[rjs1]

Reviewed by Jay Rayner in today's Observer. Likes the food but not the place.

[rjs1]

After a slightly disappointing lunch at QC a week ago, decided to give it one more go to try to find out if standards had slipped permanently or it was a one-off dip. My wife and I went there last night and ate from the full menu rather than the fixed-price lunch-and-early-evening menu I've always had there before.

Dinner was wonderful, by far the best meal I've eaten there. After a taster of blue-cheese, celery & walnut soup (a clever twist on the usual stilton, celery & walnut combo at the end of a meal), we had monkfish & clam risotto (very fresh fish, perfect risotto with lots of parmesan) and hot peppered venision salad with red cabbage coleslaw and blackberry dressing (very tender meat, perfect coleslaw, but slightly unbalanced by very hot pepper). For mains we had canon of lamb with sweetbreads (perfectly pink meat) and red mullet & sardine with chorizio and tempura-battered vegetables (again, very fresh fish; the vegetables were perfect with very light and beautifully flavoured batter; the chorizio didn't overwhelm the other ingredients.

Unfortunately didn't have time for pudding or coffee.

The sommelier said that there would be a new wine list in place by the end of next week.