If you’ve read my about me section or follow me on Snapchat you will probably know that I’m slightly obsessed with brunch. Throw bottomless bubbles in with it and I’m a very happy girl indeed. Luckily for me my friend Fran at FrannyMac is equally obsessesd, so if I suggest a day of fun in London with brunch I know she’ll be up for.
Fran and I had recently been for brunch at Avenue (check out Fran’s post on it) and totally loved it, so we decided to try another D&D restaurant; Quaglino’s hoping it would be of the same quality.
Firstly I need to apologise for the name of this post as it suggests that we had brunch, well that’s what we thought we were getting, but unfortunately we didn’t….. I rang up and booked “brunch” for a Sunday a couple of weeks ago. Once we arrived we were handed a menu which didn’t look much like brunch at all. Having since looked at Quaglino’s website it seems that they only do brunch on Saturdays, yet I wasn’t told this when I rang and asked to book “brunch”! So actually this is a review on lunch at Quaglino’s!
Quaglinos is within easy walking distance of Green Park tube station and is situated in my favourite part of London as there is so much to do in and around that area. Perfect for Fran and I, as I knew we would probably have a few drinks afterwards.
Walking down the stairs to the Quaglino’s restaurant you really get that wow factor! With the dark atmosphere and the spectacular bar as a centre piece, it oozes sophistication and glamour. My photography skills really don’t do it justice.
We opted for the 3 course option which cost £29.00 each, plus we paid an extra £15.00 each for bottomless prosecco throughout the meal. There is always the concern that waiters will be stingy on bottomless options but we didn’t need to worry here – our glasses was continually topped up, so the £15 is totally worth it.
Getting on to the food…. For starters I chose the prawn cocktail with Marie Rose sauce and to say I was disappointed is an understatement. I couldn’t even finish it and that is very unlike me. It was overly salty and from what I could tell had other fish in it that weren’t prawns, in fact I think I only found half a prawn in it!
For my main I ordered roasted corn-fed chicken breast with wild sauteed mushrooms. The chicken was well cooked and it was nice, but to my surprise you didn’t get anything with it. It was a chicken breast and that was it. So I ordered some french beans on the side. From my experience set menus always come with everything included hence why it’s a set menu, so to have to order extras on the side was a bit of a shock. Fran had ordered a burger and asked for it to cooked medium/ well. Sadly the burger came out completely pink which put her off so she ended up just eating chips. Bless her.
As waiters do, they usually come and ask how your food is, so we voiced our opinions about the meal and I must say Quaglino’s dealt with this exceptionally well. The Manager came over to speak to us to apologise and they knocked off £29 off the bill – the equivalent of one persons whole meal. So Quaglino’s may have been having an off day but they did their best to fix the catalogue of events.
After two disappointing courses we weren’t particularly looking forward to our dessert, but luckily Quaglino’s saved their best until last and we were thoroughly happy. I had Li-chu Weiss chocolate orange fondant with vanilla ice cream and Fran had Gariguette strawberry, Tahitian vanilla panna cotta & champagne air. No idea what the champagne air was but both dishes were so good. In Fran’s words “I would come back here just for a drink and that dessert”.
Although I might not have had the best experience on this occasion when it comes to food at Quaglino’s, the venue and the service more than made up for it and I would go again – although next time I would like to actually try their brunch menu! 😉
Have you been to Quaglino’s? Can you suggest any other places in London I can try for brunch?
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