Oblix at The Shard - restaurant review. Eating from on high is getting easier in London and will get easier still when the restaurants Aqua Shard and Hutong, which sandwich Oblix at The Shard, open in the next couple of months.
The hard currency of a view will start to fluctuate on the FTSE index of meal costs. As you zoom up in a non- stop lift to Oblix on the 3. Also, detail is more exciting from this level. Height is not everything. Oblix MenuOblix is a contemporary grill restaurant offering dishes. The menu at Oblix offers dishes from its spit. The open plan kitchen offers a globally inspired seasonal menu of. I took my mum to Oblix. Oblix Restaurant The ShardI was thinking that Oblix, conceived by Rainer Becker, who with Arjun Waney launched Zuma and Roka, was named after the superhumanly strong fat friend of Asterix the Gaul but I am wrong. It is apparently in homage to the building’s tall tapering shape. The menu seems a genuflection to the one at New York Grill launched by Becker in 1. Tokyo’s Park Hyatt hotel. That is another room with a view — and a bar immortalised in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. Entrance to the restaurant, furnished in what I kindly assume is a deliberately drab, dun- coloured way — give the view its due — is through a kitchen area featuring a rotisserie, Josper grills, wood- fired oven and meat- maturing glazed fridge. Piles of produce please the eye. A window table is the obvious prize. Shelves sparsely filled with coffee table books are not much of a consolation if you find yourself in the centre of the space. Executive chef is Fabien Beaufour who, after the obligatory start as a minor in his native France, has worked at The French Laundry and Eleven Madison Park in the US. Head chef is Rosie Yeats- Greenslade, last seen in London at Waney’s Aurelia but before that at Roka. The menu is a large card with some alarming — crab cake starter at . Anyone would be hard put to share the main course of grilled tiger prawns (one actually) at . Reg cradles his arms around it protectively. The effect of the cooking tried at a lunch and a dinner is of a spirited song with rather too many bum notes — no smoked pork in New England clam chowder (and no accompanying Saltine crackers); too much citron insistence in lobster and scallop ceviche; heavy- handed salting of steak tartare obliterating the taste of beef; gelatinous flesh of sous- vide Dover sole; a spit- out sweet Meyer lemon “jam” with halibut; no skordalia (the reason for ordering chicken) with rosemary chicken; ice- cold fruit in strawberry and rhubarb Pavlova. Some dishes such as veal chop with gremolata and pork belly with apple chutney and mustard seeds are serviceable, side orders of grilled green asparagus, carrots with orange and ginger, roasted cauliflower and macaroni and cheese better than the usual chorus line. Steak and chips and chicken and chips are City boys’ (and girls’, natch) natural feed and they are supplied. At dinner when the lights dim in a way reminiscent of that annoying moment in planes when they start to land — but here there is no overhead button to push in order to keep on reading — the best item of all those we ordered was dessert of chocolate brownie sundae with vanilla ice, hot fudge and caramelised cashew. Alessandro Marchesan, group sommelier for the Zuma- Roka group and co- owner of Mas la Mola winery in Priorat, Catalonia, has compiled a diverting list with much available by the glass. If you go soon to Oblix, ask for him — he’s usually only around for launches — and take his advice. He’s fun to chat with as well. My advice, although I haven’t yet acted on it, is to book in the much more relaxed Lounge where there is a deli menu during the day, live music in the evenings and brunch at weekends. The view from this side of the building towards Tower Bridge and points east is the more captivating and — I have to be frank here — the third star above given for a very early gastronomic try- out that can only, and under Rainer Becker surely will, get better — is encouraged by the eerie sight of trains at London Bridge station slithering beneath the ground. That is definitely worth the . Daily noon- 2. 3. Sat & Sun) & 6- 1. A meal for two with wine, about.
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November 2017
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