Saturday, 14 September 2013

Sally Clarke, Ha Ha Ha…


pic from www.hhfineart.com

What’s not to love about a diet where you can eat out and still lose weight – or at least not appear to gain any…  Still the same weight I was before and after our holiday, last night we dined at Sally Clarke’s, Kensington Church Street. The restaurant had been closed for five weeks over summer for a major refurb – new kitchen, new dining rooms, Lucien Freud art... the lot. We didn’t know this when we booked, and our table last night – three nights after the restaurant reopened its doors – came with a new “soft opening” fixed price menu, £29.50 for three courses. 
Sally Clarke’s reputation is built on her love of delicious fresh, well sourced seasonal ingredients, and, with our aperitifs, we both nibbled on divine “pizzette”  - actually triangle slices of flaky pizza with squash and taleggio -- before launching into a wonderful salad of mozzarella with slivered runner beans (not a string or tough bit to it) and toasted cob nuts. Then I had plump Cornish plaice with tomatoes, coco beans and spinach, followed by a deconstructed strawberry and blackberry trifle. My only regret – I wish I’d chosen the dark chocolate tartlet that lost the toss-up to the trifle! I didn’t know it was going to be deconstructed and what this meant, on the plate, was a strange arrangement of crème anglaise, cream, berries, and chunks of dry cake. The whole point of a trifle – I think – is that the cake becomes drenched in sherry and fruit… Some things are too good to mess with!

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