Spring at The Living Room
May 7th, 2011Normally a typical restaurant review starts with a discussion about the restaurant, the warm and friendly welcome, the opulent surroundings and beautiful clientele, waxing lyrical about the lavish, glamorous style of The Living Room, but regular readers of the magazine will already know we love the restaurant. We love the care attention taken by the staff, love the perfectly selected wine list and staggering cocktail menu, today our review has to start elsewhere, and its no bad thing! I simply can’t shift the memory of desert from my mind, and frankly I am not sure I want to … ever!
We left The Living Room on Bristol’s Harbourside an hour ago, the taste and image of the utterly delicious salted caramel and dark chocolate torte fills my mind, it’s perfectly soft, smooth and slightly salted caramel centre is unlike anything I have ever tasted, and already I have searched the internet looking for a recipe. It was nothing short of stunning and the best desert I have tasted in years, perfectly short pastry, dark chocolate and that amazing caramel, Wow! My dining partner ate a wonderful white chocolate and bourbon biscuit cheesecake served with basil syrup, which was a show stealer, sweet and yet somehow crisp and fresh! Amazing puddings! Right now that’s done, and trust me the puddings alone are worth a trip down there, I guess I need to go back to the starter.
As the menu is a perfect celebration of Spring and Summer where better to start than with a mixed deli board, the glorious sunshine of the last few weeks put Bristol’s climate somewhere closer to Barcelona, and this is reflected in our choice of starter, the sharing platter is a perfect summer dish, mixed Spanish meats including chorizo, prosciutto and salami sit next to olives, mozzarella and the most beautiful tomato hummus with bread, a perfect start to a summer meal and wonderfully reminiscent of holidays spent in the sunshine, all washed down with a lovely house crisp Chardonnay.
The taste of spring continues with a honey and mustard rack of lamb served pink complemented with potato gratin, beautiful soft with wafer thin layers and a light but flavour packed red wine jus. I opted for the surprisingly delicate mackerel filet and tantalising cod cheeks in a Pernod cream sauce, which was beautifully creamy with a slight bite of aniseed, which slices though the cream, complemented by the crispy pancetta. The menu is a perfect pitch for Spring, light, subtle and fragrant without compromising on the flavour, this menu is the best of modern English cuisine, intelligent, exciting and seasonal. A wonderful celebration of the season, The Living Room gets it right again!
David Penfold









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