Italian Peruvian combo
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| Lobster ceviche |
Located on Seven Dial, Monmouth Kitchen is a newly opened restaurant inside the Radisson Blu Edwardian hotel. It has somewhat an unusual theme, it is a tapas sharing concept restaurant which contain both Italian or Peruvian cuisine. Judging from the menu, the Italian side is fairly standard, with dishes such as pizza and pasta. The Peruvian is far more interesting, including plenty of ceviche dishes and skewers. For me it is a rather odd concept of serving two very difference style of cuisine in the same dining room, especially the Italian side of things are all about classic dishes while the Peruvian side focus on modern dishes.
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| Sea bass ceviche with avocado, white corn and red onion |
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| Scallop ceviche tacos |
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| Rock shrimp ceviche |
The rock shrimp ceviche was more like a shrimp salad than a ceviche with so much tomato and leaves. The seasoning was fine and the shrimp were very sweet and fresh indeed, however the whole dish only contained about 5 tiny shrimp so calling it a ceviche dish was somewhat misleading. The only Italian dish we've ordered was the seafood stew, the flavour was decent and all the fish and seafood weren't overcooked, which did this traditional Italian dish justice. While the smoked lamb cutlets looked impressive on arrival and the texture was pretty spot on, the red anticucho was rather aggressive, which overpowered the settled sweetness of the meat. What was meant to be the showstopper dish from the restaurant was a rather let down.
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| Fish and seafood stew |
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| Robata grilled baby aubergine |
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| Smoked lamb cutlets with red anticucho |
Overall, it was a fairly decent meal, nothing really stood out but at the same time there weren't really any bad dishes. They were generally far too over priced. Most of the dishes cost around the £10 mark and that was extremely expensive given the portions were all so tiny. If including desserts, our waiter suggested to have about 5 dishes each, which would take the bill north of £50 if you factored in service charge. Service was sloppy on the day, it took forever to get our wine topped up (we couldn't do it ourselves as the bottle weren't anywhere near our table) and for the bill. I feel Monmouth Kitchen has a lot to iron out and might struggle given the price they is demanding vs all the other restaurants nearby.
Food 2.5/5
What I paid:
£38 per head with wine (soft launch offer)
Average cost without drinks and services:
£40
Radisson Blu Edwardian, Mercer Street, 20 Mercer St, London WC2H 9HD
http://www.monmouthkitchen.co.uk/
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