Del Mercato Ristorante Italiano

Del Mercato Ristorante Italiano
Park Street
London
SE1 9AD
http://www.delmercato.co.uk
Date visited: Monday 26 April 2013
Attendees: Myself and The Cyclist
Price: about £50 for 2 people with service

I met the Cyclist after work to go home but suddenly felt like eating out and so went for a wander round the local area to see what we could find. Most of the restaurants around the Borough Market area seem over priced for what they offered but down a newly renovated part of the market where there is a pub and an umbrella sculpture we found Del Mercato, an Italian restaurant, part of the Vinopolis chain. We decided to go in as there was a good set menu deal on – 3 courses for £19.50.

View from our table of the courtyard

After moving around a bit we eventually got to the restaurant on the first floor (as opposed to the pizzeria/ bar dinning) where the deal was on offer. The restaurant is laid out strangely and they don’t make the most of their unusual shape I feel but we got a good window seat and a great view of the kitchen. The set menu gave you more than 3 dishes for each course (I was really impressed by the variety and mix) and after we ordered we got a nice variety of Italian breads with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Bread basket with olive oil dip

Starter:
Myself: Roasted Courgette Flowers Filled with Ricotta Cheese, Lemon Zest and Chives Served with Courgette Cream and Mix Salad

Stuffed courgette flower with chargrilled prawns

We saw the chefs cooking and putting the dish together and that was a really nice extra bit of entertainment to the meal. The dish was really well made and well presented. The ingredients were fresh and the whole dishes was very good and a decent size for a starter.

Main Course:
Myself: Deep Fried Squid, Prawns and Courgette with Tartare Sauce
The Cyclist: Braised Veal Ossobuco with “Gremolata”, Saffron “Salto” Risotto and Roasted Artichoke

Battered seafood and courgette

The Cyclist did not have the set menu, the veal is from the la carte menu. I think my main course choice was a bit silly and not quite a meal as it was a platter of deep fried seafood with sauce. The batter was chip shop thick and I ended up pulling most of it was a bit greasy and flavourless. The prawns were nice and large and you got a good amount of squid rings. The courgettes were just a few soggy strips and I think it would have been better to replace them with a salad.

Veal Ossobuco!

The Cyclist’s veal was a pretty generous chunk, well cooked and fell off the bone easily. The risotto was a good accompaniment too.

The service was a bit slow at this point as a large group had come in the and the staff were frantically changing the menu …  we think they were changing the cost of the set menu to something higher than £19.50. I took this opportunity to see the toilets, they were past the kitchen in an awkward shaped part of the building (the building seems to be a refurbished corner of one of the old warehouses and a new bridge extension). They were clean and looked like something from a Mediterranean themed bathroom set you would find in Homebase.

Eventually we got to order our desserts and get a top up to our water .

Dessert:
Myself: Raspberry sorbet with berry fruits
The Cyclist: Tiramisu

L – R: Tiramisu and Raspberry sorbet with an intense dried orange slice

I got one scoop of sorbet with lots of fruit lightly drizzled with sugar water and some mint leaves. It had great flavour – raspberry extreme and the berries were really nice too thought I would have preferred if it wasn’t drizzled in sugar water to make it sweeter, it would be good to just have sweet fruits. The Cyclist’s Tiramisu was very light and very good.

View of the kitchen service areas from our table

We got the bill once we could get the waiter’s attention and it charged us £25 for the set menu. We pointed it out to the waiter that it should be £19.50 which is what it said on the board outside and on our menu and he promptly apologised and got it changed. It does prove, in my view, that they were changing the price of the menu when the large group came in though.

Summary: All in all a very good meal for a god price, especially if you go for the set menu (which I note from their website has gone up to £29.50). The staff were nice and friendly though a bit inattentive. We had a great window seat with view of the passing public and kitchen. The art on the wall looked like bad copies from GCSE art students of badly done portraits (we were quite sure one of the portraits was of Laurel and Hardy because the key features were there but the others were harder to make out – think they should have gone for something abstract or generic Italian landscapes as their entire décor was non offensive Homebase Mediterranean). It is a place I would go back to but I wouldn’t pay more than £25 for the set menu though the a la carte seems ok value for money.

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!