When I began planning the trip to Britain, I spent countless hours researching online – not just places to stay, sites to see, but also restaurants. Some locations didn’t have much. More and more I seem to rely on Trip Advisor. That compendium of updated information provided only by users. About places ‘round the world. Its amazing, really, when you think about it, that one can do so much travel planning online now.
Many hotels we visited had Trip Advisor decals in their windows (a good sign). Or they had photocopied write-ups from Trip Advisor. And many of the hotel sites I visited had a mention of Trip Advisor within. I must go online and submit new additions to the sites where we really enjoyed our stay. There was only one hotel (in the Lake District) that I probably won’t write up somehow. And there was really nothing wrong with it – the owners were nice. But our room was damp. Towels didn’t dry overnight, and the little bit of hand washing I did took 2 full days to dry. Not problems the owners can do much about, I don’t suppose. So, it’s better to just not mention that one.
Anyway, back to restaurants . . . I did make dinner reservations in several places we visited. The tourist season was busy, and I thought it might be difficult to get reservations, particularly if we selected a popular place. Such was the case with our last night in Britain. We turned in our rental car at Heathrow, got checked into our Marriott hotel there, and then we took the tube into London. We’ve sight-seen in London countless times and had decided not to stay there on this trip.
So when researching what we’d do our last night, I went online (of course) and checked-out London restaurants. We’ve been to many of the better restaurants (although not the River Cafe) in London. We didn’t take dressy clothes on this trip. Dave absolutely refused to take a sport coat, so I didn’t want to embarrass us or others by going to a fine dining establishment in inappropriate clothes. I read about Fifteen London, Jamie Oliver’s restaurant in downtown London. Where he (and the professionals on staff) train (for free but paid for by Oliver’s foundation set up for this purpose) about 20 underprivileged young people (adults, though) how to be chefs. Not just cooks, but real chefs. They train for 11 months, when they graduate and go on to get their own jobs, hopefully. They’d just graduated the class of 2010 a few weeks ago – August is the only month of the year when the meals are created and cooked by the pros/teachers.
Whether I didn’t notice, or I made the decision to go there anyway, I don’t know, but I didn’t remember how expensive it would be. Fifteen has two restaurants – a more casual trattoria and a downstairs dining room. The latter, a set menu for 60 pounds per person is where I’d made the reservation. The kind of meal you should remember for a lifetime. I hope I do! I took photos with my small point and shoot camera, so I apologize for them not being as clear or precise (or focused) as usual.
We arrived a bit early. Too early to eat, yet not enough time to go do something else. We didn’t know how long it would take to get ourselves into London from the airport, so we allowed ample time.
So, once we got there we sat in the small bar area where people kept streaming in – some in quite dressy clothes – others in very casual clothes. We sat watching the chefs (the professionals were wearing little tight bandana head coverings (black); other kitchen staff were sans head coverings. Multiple languages were punctuating the air. Sous chefs kept going out the door (behind the glasses in photo) and disappearing down below somewhere (the dungeons) to retrieve big huge deep trays of food things (we spotted olives for sure). The walk-in storage refrigerator must be somewhere in the basement.
My drink was a cocktail type – with prosecco, Aperol, soda and an orange slice. Altogether perfect for relaxing on a warm afternoon. Dave had a glass of red wine.
This course may not have been my favorite of the night, but it was certainly right “up there.” Some delicious house made salami with to-die-for focaccia bread with red onion. The bread was just filled with the onion – it was warm, tender, and SO flavorful. The olives were home cured, we’re sure. I didn’t have any of them, but Dave said the large green ones were the best. We also had a small bowl of Spanish olive oil to dip the bread into.
Then they brought us a little amuse-bouche of fresh scallop with pomegranate (and juice) with a tiny drizzle of olive oil and the juice of Japanese limes (top photo left). All in a small Chinese ceramic soup spoon. Altogether amazing flavors.
I didn’t take notes about the wines we had – all unusual and chosen by the wine steward to go with each course. He and Dave had an animated conversation about each and every wine and why the wine was particularly appropriate for the different foods.
Next, I had burratta (second photo down). With a little bit of dark greens, a delish sauce too. You can barely see the cheese on the bottom of the plate. It was, by far, the best burratta I’ve ever had. It had great flavor and oozed just like it’s supposed to. I think they drizzled some balsamic on the plate too, or maybe it was a basil swath – I can’t remember. The greens were dressed and they also perfectly matched to go with the cheese.
Then I ordered a risotto course (third photo down). This was a tasting menu, so portions were small. Otherwise we’ve have never been able to waddle up the steps and out of there.
The risotto was full of red cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese and basil. It was absolutely to die for. Best risotto of that type I’ve ever had. I may try to re-create it here at home. It was that good. And risotto is not hard to make, but I’m not sure exactly what made this one taste so significantly better than others. Probably just the ripest of tomatoes (sweet, ripe) and whole milk mozzie. Anyway, it was superb.
Trying not to make a spectacle of myself taking photos, I didn’t use flash, so I apologize if you have a hard time seeing them. I tried to lighten them up as best I could. This last is the duck breast I ordered. It was served on a bed of very soft polenta, then drizzled with some kind of fig jam or sauce, and buried underneath the duck was a fresh fig. This dish was so good, I couldn’t believe it. And yet, nothing about it was that unusual – the duck was rare, tasty and tender, the fig sauce light and sweet, and the fresh fig was just ripe perfection.
Then they brought dessert. I took a photo of it, but am not including it because I was very disappointed in it. I ordered baked Alaska. They used a small cake round on the bottom, a nice (small) knob of vanilla ice cream, then covered it with sweet meringue. Then they’d browned it with a hand torch, I think. But the meringue was still sticky and overly sweet. After two bites I scraped off the meringue and just ate the ice cream and cake. It was okay. Nothing to remark about, really. But to have had all the other courses (5 if you include the amuse-bouche) be off the charts, I’m fine if the dessert was a “miss.”
Would I go again? Yes I would. To the dining room? Probably not – I’d try the trattoria part just because I’d like to.
15 Westland Place (about 4 blocks walk from Old Street tube station on the Northern Line)
London N1 7LP, United Kingdom
0871 330 1515 (reservations available online)
Elizabeth
said on August 26th, 2010:
That risotto sounds really good and a new wine with every course, excellent!
Do you listen to books on your ipod? I would like to purchase one for audio books, but don’t know a thing about them. Can you recommend an ipod and earpiece for audio books? My mom uses bose headphones when listening to audio books, but they are quite big. Thank you.
I have sent you a private message, Elizabeth. Hope I’ve answered all your questions about it. . . carolyn t