Apsleys

By Hyde Park Corner on Knightsbridge you find a hotel called the Lanesborough, which always fascinated me when I come past there because it seems so elegant. Outside are men in bowler hats and there is at least one Bentley parked outside at all times.

And in this fabulous hotel, which feels more lika someone’s mansion, there is a restaurant called Apsleys that Christopher and I have been dying to go it. It holds one Michelin star and is a Heinz Beck restaurant, which has a three-starred restaurant in Rome. The cuisine is light Italian and absolutely lovely.

We found a great offer on TopTable we just couldn’t resist, three courses, a glass of wine and coffee for £35.

The restaurant is smaller than I expected and has a very chic art deco design to it, and the china service fits in with the theme. Thin white bone china with slightly assymetric circles in gold on the brim.

At first we had a very nice olive oil (extra virgin from Tuscany) pured into a little owl on our sideplate and then we were served warm lovely bread straight from the oven. I had the focaccia which was lovely and light.

The amuse bouche consisted of a little salmon tartar, a rice ball with a black crust and a tomato salsa. It was plated very pretty and was nice, but nothing spectacular. But it only got better!

I had ordered seafood salad as my starter and it was lovely. Melt-in-the-mouth seafood with mango, papaya, different salads leaves and something tomato-y. Christopher chose the pasta which was ravioli made out of gnocchi dough, filled with spinach and ricotta and served with a lobster and tomato sauce. Delicious!

We ordered the same maincourse and dessert, as we have pretty similar taste, and we were thrilled about our chicken for maincouse. Normally I would not order chicken in a restaurant because I want something a bit more exciting and something further from what I cook myself. But this chicken dish blew us away and I have never been able to recreate something even remotely close to this dish. The chicken fillet which was nice and moist was wrapped in pastry with a green paste on the inside. Served with creamy polenta, wild garlic purée, mushrooms and mange tout.

I had not intended to take any photographs of the food because it did not feel like the place to do it. But when a group of girls came in and took photos of each other and we saw the amazing main course I just had to get my mobile out discreetly!

Our dessert was fantastic too! We chose the ‘surprise’ which consisted of a chocolate cake in three layers. At the bottom something crunchy resembling a digestive base, then a caramel layer and dark chocolate truffle on top. Served with sea salt icecream. OMG, this was amazing! And the little glass on the side had a creamy sweet foam which was nice and light and delicious.

Next up was petit fours, five of them nicely presented on a rectangular platter. They were (from left) a chewy almond cake, dark chocolate wih coffee, raspberry, pastry with lemoncurd and dark chocolate truffle.

After all this we had a tea (me) and a coffee (Christopher) before we left happy and full.