Brasserie Roux

Our aim for moving to London is to of course try all the food around here, so we started with the Bib Gourmande of London. Brasserie Roux is a restaurant by Albert Roux.

Food

We chose the pre-theatre menu, which started with wholemeal and grain bread with olive oil, butter and spiced onion. One thing that I have noticed about London is that the bread is almost always yummy here, and these bread were no exception. We polished off the bread, but left those little onion bits alone.

Entrees:

• duck terrain with toasted bread and conserve - excellent dish. The duck was gamey and the
• beetroot salad with goats cheese and walnut - very fresh and cleansing, but not really exceptional.

Mains:

• lamb shank - I love lamb shanks. This one was not quite fall off the bone, but I think it might have something to do with the English lambs. The sauce was great though.
• sea bass - I keep forgetting not to order seafood in London. The sea bass was well executed, only let down by the quality of the seafood.

Dessert:

• creme brulee - I think desserts were a bit of a letdown. The creme brulee was ok, but it wasn't quite creamy and quite cracked enough to say "this place has a Bib Gourmande".
• fruit datois - I ordered this jsut to see what it was. The waiter kindly described it to me, but it wasn't as I expected. Kinda like a millefeulle.

Rating - 6.5

Atmosphere

Situated in the Sofitel hotel, the dining room was all high ceiling and chandelier. It has a certain old world charm, and reminds me a bit of Galileo at the Observatory Hotel. It actually took us awhile to find the entrance to the restaurant, but we certainly felt very English dining here, and the plush (if not practical) chairs certainly added to its gentleman's club looks.

Rating - 2

Service

Exceptional, in that English way. The waiters here dress up in the full dinner suit. Suitably, we were attended to our needs, and our bread basket got refilled without any questions asked.

Rating - 4

C-factor

£15 for 3 courses and another £5 for 2 glasses of wine. This is exceptional value.

Rating - 1.5

Brownie Points - 14

Info

Sofitel St James London
6 Waterloo Place
London
SW1 Y4A
Phone 020 7968 2900
Website