Disappointing visit to Kitchen Table

We had really high expectations when we booked Kitchen Table in London.

Everything started out really well and social with the servers, we got our cocktails and champagne and decided on a bottle of wine.

We began with a few bites, a really nice oyster with a lemon granita, a chicken skin tart with bacon jam and rosemary mascarpone and torched and brushed red mullet with sour cream, these were all very nice.

We were then shown caviar and truffles and asked if we would like to add a caviar dish for 35 pounds and black truffle to 2 dishes for 50 pounds (the menu is 195 pounds).

We chose the caviar course to share and for 1 the black truffle supplement.

After this came a broth of crab with poached mushrooms, scallop tartare, which was fine, a little lacking of flavour.

We were then presented with the parker house roll which was amazing, so nice taste and texture. This was accompanied by whipped beef fat with beef gravy and wild garlic, fantastic.

Than came out the caviar course, paired with crab and structures of pear, also hazelnuts. For paying 35 pounds, i expected a lot more, all the sweetness of the pear just took away all the flavour from the crab and caviar, it was pretty disappointing.

Than came guarnard from the dayboats fried on the skin served medium rare, with shrimp heads hollandaise, bbq oyster mushroom, pickled samphire and braised and roasted fennel. It was good but maybe a little bit lacking flavour, and also not to warm.

After this came the standout course of the whole evening, grilled squid tentacle, squid linguini marinated in chicken fat, lobster brain omelette, lobster emulsion with curry, hazelnut and mango. This was simply amazing, all the tasted coming together to form a fantastic dish.

After this we were presented with angolottis filled with white mushrooms and polenta, served with leek, 36 month parmesan sauce, black garlic, shaved chestnut, and the first of the black truffle supplement. This day was fine, not that interesting and the black truffle didnt really add anything to the dish.

Before the ravioli we were presented with the duck.

Now we were served the duck breast roasted, sausage made from duck leg, black truffle and madeira sauce (2nd supplement), turnip, red meat radish, rhubarb. It looked good, and then we tasted it, this dish was cold, every part of it was lukewarm at best and this just ruined the dish for us, this just shouldn’t happen.

As second preparation they gave a ragu of duck and deer, with celeriac puree and celery leaves. Which was much better.

Then we had a cheese course, made up off Saint jude cheese (which was ok), served with apple in calvados and bread toasted in brown butter, very nice.

After this a dish of pumpkin praline, candied pumpkin, caramel ice cream, smoked ice cream, this was fine good but nothing special.

Now the final dessert, based around rhubarb (salted, sorbet, crisp, compote, poached), with milk ice cream, oil and powder of terragon. This was nice they toasted the merengue with charcoal and this gave off a nice flavour.

Finally we had canelés with orange marmalade and merengue flavoured with cep with chocolate ganache.

All by all we had a nice experience but were disappointed by the tasted and just only one course wowed us (the squid). The wine we had was amazing (Chablis). In the end everything went fast because they were about to start on the second service, which was not really nice. The service from all the servers and the host was really kind, social and overall amazing.