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Foliage


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  • 3 weeks later...

Having been so impressed by lunch a few weeks ago we returned for dinner on Friday night. In short it was excellent, at present the cooking is well up there with the best two star restaurants in London.

There are differences in the menu between lunch and dinner, starters are slighlty more complex, there are a number of different main courses, amuses are different, although the desserts are the same.

Stareted with Kirs - very average

For the amuse we had lobster ravioli on a lobster bisque, white bean soup with truffle and tomato jelly. The jelly was OK, the taste was good but it was quite a large amount of cold wobbly savoury stuff. The soup was excellent good deep earthy flavour. The ravioli was also good, decent chunk of lobster, nicely made pasta well flavoured sauce/bisque.

Starters we had white onion tarte tatin (again and see above for views but it is excellent, the only difference from the lunch version is the addition of some saffron potatoes) and langoustine and crab raviolo, a large pillow like raviolo filled with shellfish mousse surrounded by langoustine and more lobster, good fresh tasting seafood, very good.

Main courses were turbot (roast with cabbage, pot roast with pork and raviolo). This was fantastic a piece of roast (pan fried) turbot on top of some lightly cooked cabbage (sauerkraut lite), a large piece of pot roast turbot on top of a larger piece piece of pot roast pork belly (really excellent both were really succulent and combined very well with each other and a red wine reduction and the raviolo minced turbot and herbs (also very good but was lighter and thus suffered in comparison to the other two).

The other main courses was partridge with bacon and cabbage, a very meaty well rounded dish, the partridge was full of flavour the whole dish helped by large (1 inch) cubes of bacon and well flavoured red cabbage.

Pre dessert was strawberry souffle, lavender (or violet can't remember) sorbet and a square of chocolate mousse. The whole thing was bigger than some restaurants actual dessert. The stand out part was the souflle, full of strawberry flavour with none of the egginess which often carries through in sweet souffles.

For dessert we had raspberry ice cream, lemon chibouste (again as at linch above) and banana creme brulee, chocolate truffle and salted caramel ice cream. Again this was really enjoyable not flashy it was after all a banana creme brulee but perfectly executed and very satisfying. The chocolate truffle was well chocoalte truffle and the ice cream tasted excellent not too salty, the only problem was it meklted really quickly, despite not being near anything warm, I guess the salt content stops it freezing as well.

All this followed by excellent petits fours and good coffee.

We had a bottle of NZ sauvignon quite good, and a bottle of house red (cotes de ventoux) which was very good.

Overall an excellent to fantastic (bit excited here) meal, we got the sense that at the moment the kitchen here is at its peak and it must be one of the best restaurants in London.

Paul

Edited by Paul Bell (log)
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  • 6 months later...

My daily email from Top Table informs me that Foliage have a new chef - Nori San. Apparently he spent time with Michel Trama at L'Aubergade (used to be a great restaurant...), Charlie Trotter and Tetsuya Wakada. They have a special offer on the 8 course tasting menu of £55.

Has anyone experienced Nori San's cooking or been to Foliage since he arrived?

Gav

"A man tired of London..should move to Essex!"

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  • 1 month later...

We were at Foliage for lunch on the 20th.

Amuses were very good, although Scotts Fois starter was smaller than we had had previously.

We were delighted to be comped what Matthew the Maitre d described as an intermediary course of the frogs legs and Langoustines. Delicious thank you very much! :wink:

My main which was the Assiete of Lamb was interesting - wasn't too sure about the tongue - maybe a texture thing with me.

Scott had a fish dish - hopefully he'll elaborate - that I thought was perhaps a bit "busy" - and seemed to have a very similar sauce to our intermediary course.

Desserts very good, and as usual, petites were delicious.

Left feeling very stuffed, and continued to marvel at the fantastic value that Foliage is.

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The lunch I had with Sam & Scott there a few months ago was very pleasant indeed

There were a few wrong notes and there was the impression of the cooking being done by the second string under the supervision of one of the senior staff ( rather like in my student days when I had hair going to Vidal Sassoon and having a trainee cut my hair while a senior stylist stood over the shoulder to make sure I did not come out looking like Phil Oakey )

but, as Sam says, for the price ( £30-ish ) I think. Very good value indeed

S

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I have booked for dinner and the Chef is still Chris Staines, no plans for a new chef - so obviously Top Table got it wrong.

Chris Staines is a very talented chef, I think. My wife & I had a supurb lunch there with a friend and two babies a little while ago - the staff couldn't have been nicer to the infants (may have helped that we were the only people there for 1 3/4 hours of the meal).

Better for lunch than dinner, perhaps (as well as much cheaper!), as you get the view of the park to distract you from the awful carpet.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Went for lunch yesterday with my wife and a couple of friends. Compared with a year ago, there were subtle changes. Aside from the fact that the luncheon price has moved up sharpish from £25.50 to £32, we had the feeling that we were being subjected to an artificially attentive "full treatment". Service last year was entirely satisfactory in detail, but without fuss -- we were treated as equals. This time we felt that we were, well, punters. Just a little too enthusiastic, a little too helpful with the menu without our asking. Empty wine glasses were promptly taken away with a "Would you like another glass?" that was not so much a question as a statement assuming an affirmative response, even after we'd finished the main course. On the plate, the towers were a little higher, the quantities a little smaller, the decoration more mannered and elaborate.

All this is not so much an accusation as a regretful observation that Foliage seems to have passed on to a style, an ambience, that is not our incentive for dining out.

John Whiting, London

Whitings Writings

Top Google/MSN hit for Paris Bistros

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  • 9 months later...

short review.

been twice for lunch in the last week. Suggest that it is THE best lunch deal in London, bar none. Including the reigning king Gavroche, and the ever prescient Capital.

3 Courses, with wine, £32

inc Canapes.

The food is magnificent, complex, powerful and assertive flavours, artful presentation. very classical french with modern influences.

Quality - just under 2* standard.

The wines by the glass offered with lunch are good, a nice crisp gruner veltiner, and an argentinian sangiovese. The cheese board for desert is included, no supplement.

service good, views over hyde park tip top.

Among the best dishes I have had this year.

The wine list, is a little overpriced until you hit about £35 per bottle upwards where there are some great bargains. great range of languedoc wines - wonder where they got them ? :wink:

why isn't this place mentioned more?????

9/10

A meal without wine is... well, erm, what is that like?

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Scott,

I have to admit that after a dinner there earlier this year I felt this had gone downhill since I went previously when Hywel Jones was there and although everything looked ostensibly good it lacked any dynamism of flavour. This is clearly completely at odds with your experience so perhaps there have been some changes. Thanks for the update...can anyone else confirm Scott's experiences?

As far as best value lunch is concerned does GR@RHR come in to the equation at £35....Robyn?

Gav

"A man tired of London..should move to Essex!"

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why isn't this place mentioned more?????

I've never done lunch here, only dinner.

I like the food and the service.

But... having to fight through the ajoining bar (read: meat market) to get to your table is quite off putting. Not to mention the occasional table of obnoxious folks in the restaurant who should've held back on their boozing next door before sitting down in the restaurant.

Cheers, Howard

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Who's the chef there at the moment?

Scott, you going again for Lunch any time soon? Maybe I could do a raid into town and join you.

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

Flickr Food

"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

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Who's the chef there at the moment?

Scott, you going again for Lunch any time soon? Maybe I could do a raid into town and join you.

Moby,

Chris Staines.

As to next time, not sure at this stage, but it won't be far away! will let you know.

also, the reason why I think it the best lunch is that it is available 7 days a week.

full 3 courses with extra bits, plus wine for £32 - can't beat it.

A meal without wine is... well, erm, what is that like?

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As to next time, not sure at this stage, but it won't be far away! will let you know.

also, the reason why I think it the best lunch is that it is available 7 days a week.

full 3 courses with extra bits, plus wine for £32 - can't beat it.

If it happens to be a weekend, and you don't mind a hanger-on, let me know too.

Cheers, Howard

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As to next time, not sure at this stage, but it won't be far away!  will let you know.

also, the reason why I think it the best lunch is that it is available 7 days a week.

full 3 courses with extra bits, plus wine for £32 - can't beat it.

If it happens to be a weekend, and you don't mind a hanger-on, let me know too.

Cheers, Howard

will do!

A meal without wine is... well, erm, what is that like?

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  • 2 months later...

Jay Rayner reviews Foliage in this weeks Observer, and while he likes the food, he has some reservations about, well, the reservations. He appears to be rather upset that Foliage won't take a quarter past the hour booking. I'm sure Rayner had a very good reason for wanting to dine 15 minutes earlier or later than is normal, but it is something that I have never needed or wanted to do.

So is it the restaurant or the critic that is being unreasonable?

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while he likes the food, he has some reservations about, well, the reservations. He appears to be rather upset that Foliage won't take a quarter past the hour booking. I'm sure Rayner had a very good reason for wanting to dine 15 minutes earlier or later than is normal, but it is something that I have never needed or wanted to do.

So is the restaurant or the critic that is being unreasonable?

If I reply to your question will my post be removed for going off topic?

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