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Oxo Tower Restaurant
IF you quite love taking in London whilst you eat well, this is the place to do it.
The Oxo Tower Restaurant is a stellar contender for satisfying your eye and your stomach. We took up a very decent window table and gawped at the view of London flanking the Thames, from Somerset House on the West, to St Paul’s on the East. In between reading the menu we attempted to identify the rest of the buildings along the riverside (which had us occupied for the bulk of the evening, until the maître d' put us out of our misery and helped out with his much appreciated local knowledge).
In between trying to sound intelligent with our London skyline trivia, we got stuck into starters of crab salad and rabbit terrine. The crab, which came with sweetcorn ice cream and seaweed bread tasted wonderfully light and refreshing. The quite bizarre sounding sweetcorn ice cream tasted more like a rich cream without the ice-cold element but was good nonetheless. The rabbit terrine raised an eyebrow from my dining partner who was braving rabbit for the first time, but found that the new flavour worked surprisingly well with its accompanying pickled prune compote. Savoury and coarse, the terrine also came with a contrasting accompaniment in the shape of some sweet-tasting carrot bread (well a rabbit’s got to have his carrot).
Our main dishes of veal and mallard arrived looking far too pretty to tamper with, but we somehow managed to force ourselves. A leg and breast of duck were balanced on my plate sitting on a bed of mango salsa, with a bowlful of salty-good potato crisps. The veal meanwhile was delicate in taste, and covered generously with a five-pepper crust. Our side order of Chantenay carrots was the only unremarkable thing we tasted, but our desserts more than made up for it. We tucked into raspberry royal fizz and sorbet, choosing to take up the sommelier’s dessert wine pairing suggestion, and the chocolate plate. Oh the chocolate plate. Quite possibly worth turning up for just for this, the chocolate plate delivered the kind of cocoa hit that all taste buds dream of. It included a glass of rich creamy hot chocolate (complete with teensy marshmallows), a super rich white chocolate truffle, and a sliver of chocolate gateaux (which was so good, I actually forgot about the view for a second).
To attempt some kind of counter balance, fresh mint tea was ordered, whilst I savoured the rest of the chocolate plate and my dining partner considered Richard’s Last Wish on the menu. Not really a dessert option for those credit crunch moments at £75.00, but worth noting if you love a brandy tipple or three. The Oxo Tower’s head pastry chef has matched three desserts to three of Richard Hennessy’s vintage brandies, so you can savour the taste of each sought after brandy and woo your sweet tooth at the same time. We barely had room for anything else, let alone Richard’s Last Wish, but still felt compelled to try the petit fours that rounded off our meal. Feeling positively spoiled by the staff and the food, we collected our jackets whilst the maître d' talked us through the London skyline. We left feeling a little bit wiser and quite a lot heavier.
HELENKA BEDNAR
Editor
iLoveMyGrub.com
Oxo Tower Restaurant:
Oxo Tower Wharf, Barge House Street, South Bank, London, SE1 9PH. |
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