Good Friday lunch

[Winot]

Good Friday is my birthday and is shaping up well with tickets to see Stephen Malkmus (ex-Pavement) and Graham Coxon at the Royal Festival Hall.

The RFH is hardly a rock 'n' roll venue however and they tend to start things on time, which in this case means 7.30pm. A bit early for an evening meal. So I figured that a nice lunch might be in order followed by a walk along the river to the gig.

I thought first about Putney Bridge, but it doesn't look as if the river bank between there and RFH is particularly accessible. So how about going east? Thoughts I've had are:

Aquarium

Wapping Power Station

Blue Print Cafe

Pont de la Tour (I know, it's Conran, but I thought the view would be good)

Butlers Wharf

Any other thoughts? Is there anything decent in Greenwich? I want to keep it to about £40 a head if possible. I also realise some of these might be closed for Easter.

All suggestions gratefully received.

W.

[Tonyfinch]

Blueprint Cafe and Butler's Wharf Chophouse are also Conran.Both are very good restaurants and IMO much better value than Pont de la Tour. The Chophouse does a cheap set lunch in the bar which is real value and if the weather's good you can eat outside by the river. The food at Blueprint is more interesting and I think its got the best view of any restaurant in London.

Aquarium is very prettily set in St. Katherine's Dock marina and again, if weather permits it would definitely be pleasant eating outside. I posted on this place a few days ago (see below).

Another more gastronomic option in the area would be Tentazione. This is a relatively unsung Italian restaurant behind Shad Thames which Jonathan Meades considered the best Italian in London about five years ago. I haven't been for a couple of years so I couldn't vouch for how it is now, but I've had several truly excellent meals there-although whether its a lunchtime option I'm not sure.

Wapping Food is opposite where I live and is infuriatingly hit and miss.I've had wonderful and totally duff dishes within the same meal. At other times its just mediocre. I'm never sure who runs this show because although the menu posted outside has the date and time in bold letters at the top - FRIDAY APRIL 4th-LUNCH---half the time they forget to change it and the same menu will be there three days later although what you get inside will be completely different-pretty slack management approach which kind of sums up the feel of the whole place IMO.

Edited April 4, 2003 by Tonyfinch (log)

[Tonyfinch]

Sorry, forgot to add My Mate Keith who lives in (well, near) Greenwich reckons the best restaurant there is Inside. I've had several meals there and again its a bit hit and miss but generally pretty good, reasonably priced "Modern European" kind of food. Very pleasant service from impossibly young staff. It's not a place for culinary fireworks but I don't know if anywhere in Greenwich is. This is Gavin J's neck of the woods is it not?

[Gavin Jones]

I wouldn't strongly recommend anywhere in Greenwich.

I like the Blue Print Cafe - though it won't give you that much of a walk. How long do you want lunch & the walk to be? Even at a leisurely & liquid pace I'd imagine it would be hard for lunch to still be going strong past five o'clock. That gives you quite a bit of London to walk from.

Edit: Tony's right on the absence of culinary fireworks.

Inside is decent at the modern european end, and it is possible to enjoy oneself at the bar du musee. The Spread Eagle will do you vigorously old-fashioned French too.

Plus there is the pleasure of a walk up through Deptford and Rotherhithe afterwards.

Edited April 4, 2003 by Gavin Jones (log)

[Paul Bell]

You could look in the other direction and go somewhere like Ransome's Dock, good food, excellent wine list. Walk back through Battersea park, through some dodgy areas of south London (aren't they all?) or cross Battersea bridge, along Millbank, palace of Westminster etc, not admittedly the quietest of walks.

Paul

[Scott]

RSJ,

then walka round in circles along the river bank

[Paul Bell]

Baltic and stay in Baltic working your way through their different vodkas.

Paul

[Winot]

Good suggestions all. I take Gavin's point about the length of the walk -- don't want to start too far out though -- that's bandit country. I suspect in any event that the length of walk will be inversely proportional to the amount of liquid consumed.

I am now thinking about two further options -- starting around Regent's Park (Odette's?) and walking the canal all the way down to Limehouse then back to the South Bank maybe taking a bus part of the way -- too far d'you think? Or perhaps exploring Wapping before heading back to the gig -- I've just bought a book of London walks and there's a good one that goes out to Docklands.

Perhaps we need two meals -- brunch and late lunch. Clearly more research needed.

[Winot]

Decided on Tentazione in the end, ,and very nice it was too.

Reserved for 1.30pm but needn't have bothered -- there was just one other table full the whole time we were there. In fact I'm surprised they opened (Butlers Wharf Chophouse didn't).

Tentazione is on Mill Street which is one of those artificial wharf areas just eastof Shad Thames. Hasn't yet bedded down and all a bit sterile IMO. The room is quite darkly decorated with naff moody paintings and an odd suspended ceiling in dark red. The tables are large however, nicecly spaced with comfortable chairs.

Excellent service throughout from a waiter who knew his stuff. He started by telling us the chef had some fresh porcini and he would cook them however we wanted which I thought charming. We passsed on the mushrooms but then they turned up anyway as an appetiser lightly sauteed with rocket and truffle oil.

The menu was one of those where you want to order everything. You can have a 5 courser (can't remember the price) but we weren't hungry enough. To start I had tiny pasta shells with spicy octopus and cepes (actually I think they were the same mushrooms as before) shaped into a stack with a lovely sauce (more chickeny than fishy but worked nicely). Her indoors had fried anchovies in batter with a peanut sauce which soundedd a bit too fusiony for me but apparently worked well.

Mains were sea bass fillets for me with a red pepper coulis which went brilliantly with the fish, roasted shallots (lovely) and skinned cherry tomatoes (rather odd addition- didn't really work). There must have been some kind of carbs with it but I can't rememberr what they were. She had a marinated pork fillet with black ravioli filled with prawns and some veg (green beans?) -- this was the standout dish of the meal -- tender flavousome pork with lots of differernt flavours on the plate all of which you could taste but which worked together as well. Wish I'd chosen it but always imagine that fish at lunchtime will be more satisfying than meat, don't know why.

We were pretty full by now but finished by sharing a fantastic cheese plate with about 7 cheeses (all italian - sorry no details), balsamic vinegar reduction, chiilis, dried fruit and a weird solid mustard fruit jelly which actually worked really well -- a bit like a fruitier crystallised ginger.

To drink I started with an OK prosecco then we shared a bottle of Italian white recommended by the waiter -- I think it was called Turbana Greco. Anyway it was pretty good value at £24 -- good length and acidity with aromatic/floral overtones but not too sweet, went well with all the dishes. Surpringly the espresso was only OK.

Set us up nicely for a walk thorugh old Wapping out to Westferry then the DLR back for Stephen malkmus who was great.

Good cooking and pretty good value at fifty pounds per person including service.