Spanish style brunch
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| Piquillo pepper croquette and cured salmon & miso |
For regular readers of my blogs, you would know I have got nothing but love for Spanish cuisine. However, I don't think I have ever eaten a Spanish brunch before, so when I noticed Jason Atherton's Social Wine and Tapas launched a new brunch menu, I arranged a visit. I am a big fan of Jason's work in the restaurant business. His flagship restaurant: Pollen Street Social, was one of my favourite restaurant. Since then, he has launched many new places across the world, and Social Wine and Tapas is one of his more unique restaurant in London, offering creative Spanish small plates instead of his more common French/British bistro cooking.
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| Poached haddock, egg, spinach |
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| Endive, walnut, beauvale |
The brunch contained multi courses, almost like a mini tasting menu. It started off with a well executed cured salmon dish, containing miso and creme fraiche. It tasted very fresh and had a well balance of eastern and western flavour. The star dish of the menu was the grilled endive, which has a wonderful sweet taste with a mellow bitter tone, it worked like a treat together with the robust flavour of the beauvale cheese. Braised octopus had a lovely soft and smooth texture but the seasoning was perhaps a little aggressive and I think the dish would have been better to served with some kind of rice or bread to balance off the heavy flavour.
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| Braised octopus, roast chorizo |
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| Veal, celeriac, smoked pancetta |
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| Cinnamon doughnuts |
It was an interesting brunch and offered something different to the usual set lunch or British brunch menu elsewhere, which was refreshing to see. I think with a little more refinement to some of the dishes, it could become a very successful formula for the restaurant. For £20 for a 7 course menu, it was great value for money. Lastly, like most of other Jason's restaurants, the service was rock solid, very professional but down to earth and friendly at the same time, which made the meal a whole lot more enjoyable.
Food 3/5
What I paid:
£23 per head
Average cost (normal menu) without drinks and services:
£25
39 James St, Marylebone, London W1U 1DL, UK
http://www.socialwineandtapas.com/
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