Pierre Victorie

Pierre Victoire
5 Dean Street
London
W1D 3RQ
www.pierrevictoire.com
Date visited: Friday 12^th August 2011
Attendees: Myself, MBB and The Cheesemonger
Price of meal: approx £17 pp for 3 course set lunch menu, dessert and coffee

I had heard lots of good things about Pierre Victorie and as I had a money off voucher as it were and the Luncheon Club (as this little posse is lovingly known) were long overdue for a meeting; to Pierre Victorie we headed.

I arrived late and MBB and The Chessemonger were already seated at a decent sized table near the window in a very busy, buzzing but relaxed restaurant with a rustic French provincial bistro interior. The set menu is large and extensive, we were very pleased with it and as we gossiped and laughed a waiter came to take our order. I was most impressed with the speed and attention as we asked him to come back in 5 minutes as we were not ready to order and, top marks, he did despite it being a busy lunch time.

The bread basket (already started on)

There was already a generous basket of bread on the table with lots of little packets of butter. The bread was fresh and we didn’t need to order more as it wasn’t one piece per person carefully placed to make it look like more, there was actually a lot of it – top marks again.

Starters:
Myself: Haddock and crab cakes with pickled shredded vegetables salad
MBB: Boullabaise soup
The Cheesemonger: Chicken liver parfait

Haddock and crab cakes with sweet pickle salad

Boullabaise soup

Chicken liver parfait

The starters came in good time and we tucked into them. My haddock and crab cakes were small but tasty though I thought it was quite heavy on the pepper. The sweet pickled salad was a very good accompaniment to it. I enjoyed it lots and could have had more as a main course. MBB was very pleased with his boullabaise especially as it had decent sized chunks of seafood it in. The Cheesemonger enjoyed her starter too saying that “it might look like a mossy river bank but it’s actually very nice.”

Thumbs up all round and our plates were cleared away soon after we had finished.

Main Course:
Myself: Haddock gratin with spinach and hand cut chips
MBB: Beef bourguignon
The Cheesemonger: Roasted belly of pork with red cabbage and apples

Delicious but bad for the arteries haddock gratin and hand cut chips

Generous beef bourguignon with very green green beans

Generous roast pork loin

My haddock gratin came in a little dish saturated in a butter cheese sauce on a wooden platter with chips on the side. The haddock was perfectly cooked, moist and had lots of flavour. The spinach was underneath the haddock so try as hard as I might I could not avoid consuming copious amounts of butter and cheese and damn it tasted nice! The chips were very good too and freshly made. To balance out the copious amounts of butter and cheese (I had to eat the spinach, its vegetable!) I consumed MBB and The Cheesemonger helped me out with the chips. MBB was pleased with his beef bourguignon, there were lots and lots of beef chunks and even a few green beans to add some colour and it tasted great. The Cheesemonger had a huge chunk of pork, it looked great and it tasted great too according to the Cheesemonger and I can well believe her.

Our empty plates were cleared away swiftly again and we were asked if we wanted dessert. Well the food so far had been so good, of course we were going to have dessert and coffee.

Dessert and coffee:
Myself: Sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream and filtered white coffee
MBB: Chocolate mousse and cappuccino
The Cheesemonger: Moist amaretto tiramisu and filtered white coffee

Not to big not too small but just right sized sticky toffee pudding

Glass of chocolate mousse

Trifle-esque tiramisu

There was a real dilemma for me whether I had banoffee pie or the sticky toffee pudding so I asked if I could see the banoffee pie to see if there was lots of cream it (I don’t like lots of cream). She brought it over and half of it was cream but it did look very tasty.

The sticky toffee pudding sponge was very light, not too sweet and very good. The vanilla ice cream was good and fairly standard. MBB’s chocolate mousse was very chocolaty and light and the Cheesemonger’s tiramisu’s was huge and tasted good and she enjoyed. Our coffees came soon after dessert with a little biscuit. Both were good thought I would have liked a bigger cup and I don’t think there was a difference between the cappuccino and filtered coffee.

The coffee and biscuit

Summary: I am definitely going to return to Pierre Victorie. The food is excellent and the portions are generous. Apart from the desserts it seemed mostly like genuine French bistro food. I can’t believe they are selling such great food for such low prices, no wonder it was packed at lunch and I bet it will be packed at dinner and be the same every day. The service is excellent; the staff are friendly, attentive and quick. This restaurant is close to perfect, perhaps even more so than the Michelin starred restaurants I’ve been to mainly because the service is so good.

UPDATE!!!

Dear reader,
It is with great sadness, a tear in my eyes and a heavy heart that I must report the following news…

I took The Quiff, Apple Geek, Apple Geek’s German cousin and the Cyclist to Pierre Victorie this evening as I thought they would really like it – this being the best restaurant I have been to and knowing it would suit all tastes and prices.

Well we arrived at 6pm, when the table was booked. I didn’t think it would be busy as it was early. It was busy but not heaving, our table was waiting and a fresh and generous bread basket as I knew there would be. Anyway, the waiter came twice for our order but we weren’t ready. By the third attempt we were. Only 3 of us where having starters and these came in good time and were delicious as expected. We had all ordered mains and this is where the problems began. IT took too long for our mains to come and Apple Geek did not appreciate this. And with a heavy heart I must, in all honesty agree. It was too long to wait and I guess it was also more noticable as we were on a time budget (The Quiff, Apple Geek and the German cousin had a train to catch) and Apple Geek didn’t have a starter. The waiter did come up eventually, probably because he could see we were agitated, to apologise and tell us our food was coming. When the food did come it was delicious and a good size portion as expected. BUT oh! the 2 beef bourguignon mains we had did not have french beans as MBB’s had when I first dining at the restaurant!

We then order dessert. There should have been enough time to get dessert and not rush to the station. But alas, it took a while for the waiter to come and take our order and a while for it to come. The coffee never arrived and so we cancelled it and got the bill.

Oh dear  – the service was one of the best things about Pierre Victorie and the service is still good – they are still friendly and good, it was just the food took too long to come. To defend my favourite restaurant, I think the wait wasn’t too long, we just felt it more because we were on a time budget. Just like the time we were at The Terrace restaurant, but that really was a long wait and no apology!

Summary: I will definitely be back, the slight wait has not put me off, everything else was still excellent!

Hush Brasserie

Hush Brasserie
8 Lancashire Court
Brook Street
London
W1S 1EY
www.hush.co.uk
Date visited: Saturday 9^th April 2011
Attendees: Myself, The Quiff and Apple Geek
Price of meal: approx £18 per person for 3 courses with 50% off cocktails are £9 each

After a lazy brunch at Smith of Smithfields we had a lazy walkabout, a wander around the Saatchi Gallery and the V&A, and a bit of shopping although le Quiff and Apple Geek swore they would not shop. Soon it was dinner time and we were wondering down New Bond St looking for Hush. Apple Geek was sent off on a reconnaissance mission and as he leapt and bounded like a gazelle peering into alleyways and possible mews entrances, le Quiff and I watched. Soon after he turned back, waved manically for us to come – he had found it!

Not a very good view out of the window we sat next to

Hush is located off the main road in a beautiful cobbled mews which is quiet, clean and surrounded by pretty historic looking buildings. You can dine alfresco at Hush on a nice day. Our table was inside the restaurant which is really beautiful too; hints of many French themes; think quaint Provence, think ostentatious Louis XIV baroque, think modern slick French restaurant. We are in the main dinning room on the ground floor but there is a private hire room and bar upstairs where the toilets are – the toilet makes me think of large homely luxury cottage in Provence with l’occitane products. We are given the special offer menu which is a pared down a la carte.

Starter:
Myself: Organic salmon tartare with lemon oil and chilli with toasted slices of sour dough bread, tap water
The Quiff: Spring pea soup with Welsh rarebit toast, Bond 75 cocktail – has gin, mint and lychee juice amongst other things
Apple Geek: Salt and pepper squid with tartare sauce, Mayfair cosmo – Absolut Citron Vodka, Grand Marnier, Cranberry Juice, Fresh Raspberries

The Bond 75 cocktail standing behind well weighted salt and pepper dispensers

The Mayfair cosmo in 1920 style champagne glass, is this what makes it 'Mayfair'?

The food came really quickly and we assumed this was because we were eating early and the restaurant was quiet. The drinks came not long after we started eating and both the Quiff and Apple Geek enjoyed them. The Bond 75 was sweet but refreshing and the Mayfair cosmo was nice but we couldn’t work out what about it made it a ‘Mayfair’ cosmo – answers on the back of a postcard if you can tell me!

Sourdough toast and salmon tartare

A radioactive green pea soup with Welsh rarebit on the left

Calamari and tartare sauce in background

The first thing to say about our starters was that they were big portions. Le Quiff had a huge bowl of soup with a generous slice of rarebit which would have sufficed as a lunch on its own. I tried some of the rarebit which had good flavour and le Quiff said the soup was very good. Apple Geek said his squid was ok. I tried some and I don’t know why they battered the squid rings and the batter was a little too thick, so it was calamari really. Neither was it salt and pepper but the batter was a sort of mild curry flavour so other than the fact that it wasn’t really what it claimed to be apart from squid it tasted quite nice and the squid wasn’t over cooked. My salmon was very nice and well seasoned, the capers were good and there wasn’t too much raw onion in the mix (as with my complaint with SOS, if you are going to put raw onion in something you have to say no matter how little you put in!) and it was very finely diced as was the chilli which wasn’t too strong. The toast was thin, crispy and tasted very nice. I enjoyed the salmon but couldn’t finish it; I was already feeling full and didn’t know how I would tackle the main course.

Our plates were cleared away quickly and our mains came just as fast, I still had the taste of salmon in me mouth!

Main Course:
Myself: whole roast sea bass with lemon and thyme
The Quiff: slow roast belly pork with Mayfair cassoulet
Apple Geek: Hush hamburger with cheese
To share: Aspen chips (parmesan and black truffle) and green beans with garlic and shallot

The sea bass

Pork belly and Mayfair cassoulet

Hush burger with ketchup

Chips and beans

Waitress was sure to let us know that our mains didn’t come with anything on the plate other than what was stated so we decided to get the side dishes. Appearance wise we liked the fact that there plates were individual and different – nice touch. Apple Geek said his burger was very good and liked the thought put into the placing of the burger’s garnish. Le Quiff enjoyed his pork belly and was impressed with the crackling on it and though he liked his cassoulet couldn’t see what made it a ‘Mayfair’ cassoulet rather than a regular cassoulet. Neither were there any vegetables in it as the waitress had said. My sea bass very nice – moist and I don’t recall getting any stray bones in it. I liked the fact that you get half a lemon wrapped in muslin to stop the pips falling on to the fish.  I couldn’t finish the fish, especially with the side dishes which we shared. The chips had great flavour and I really liked the black truffle with it but they were a bit soggy and not crisp enough. The green beans also had great flavour and were nicely al a dente but could have been fresher, they were a bit limp.

Our plates were cleared away quickly again, the dessert menu handed out. We had been served by the same waitress throughout and she now came speeding round for our order dessert but as our first two dishes were so big we asked if we could have a 10 minute breather before ordering. After about 15 minutes we were ready to get dessert but the previously super attentive waitress kept speeding pass as if we weren’t there. And here I have to do justice to Apple Geek – the waitress was walking pass our table and he SAID to her ‘we’d like to order please?’ and she ignores him! How rude, how rude, how rude? Service was quite good up until that point but that is terrible – we’re all disgusted-repulsed-offended-outraged-insulted and in shock! After we recover (we’re not dramatic at all) the Quiff gets the attention of another waitress and we order.

Dessert:
Myself: salted fudge ice cream
The Quiff: warm valrhona chocolate pot
Apple Geek: sticky toffee pudding with crème fraiche

Delicious salted fudge ice cream

Warm chocolate pot with biscuits

Sticky toffee pudding

The restaurant was busy now but the dessert came with lightening quick speed and we wondered how they did it all so quickly? Anyway overall the desserts were very good and we all enjoyed them. I really enjoyed my ice cream which tasted just as described you could make out both fudge and salt it came with stick of honeycomb dipped in chocolate which was also very nice. Dessert was cleared away quickly and the Quiff got an espresso and after a while we get the bill, visit the toilet and leave – no tip for the waitress other than be consistently attentive.

The espresso

Summary: Hush is in a great location and setting and the service would have been very good if the waitress had not been so bad at the end. The food was certainly worth it with 50% off, it was tasty and the portions were generous. It wasn’t quite fine dinning which is what it seemed to be aiming for but I felt it was more like good homely food – a bit like the decor that seemed to be aiming for one thing but wasn’t quite one thing or another but worked well.