As a treat/reward, we were taken by our daughters for brunch/lunch at the Wolseley which we have been to before for a birthday dinner. They did not actually have a brunch menu, but you can get lunch or a sort of Sunday lunch or just eat what you want from the menu.
When I was a kid, a Wolseley was a boring car, that maybe your teacher might drive in a sit up and beg manner. They were part of BMC/British Leyland, and eventually faded from site. I looked it up, and the premises in Piccadilly were used, in the 1920's, for a somewhat upmarket marque of the time which became the somewhat disappointing marque of my childhood. Then the building became a bank, and then an upmarket restaurant where people might go to be seen. Whoever did the refurbishment did a fantastic job of returning it to its Oriental Art Nouveau style, with a mix of Chinoiserie and Ancient Greece. Frankly it is worth going just to be part of the environment which I found most enjoyable.
They have a fairly comprehensive web site on https://www.thewolseley.com/ which tells you most of what you need to know, but may scare you off.
Having been to some fairly overpriced venues in recent times, I was quite suprised to see that the menu pricing was not silly. Expensive, yes, but silly no. For 4 people for a lightish lunch with cover coffees and service, but no alcohol, and including 12.5% service, you can come in for under £100, which is quite normal for central London.
I had the burger with some fries:
As you can see this is not a stonking great burger, but something a bit more dainty. I got a bit confused as they did not tell me it was coming in a bun, even though I asked. I have to say that this was one my better burgers, and was almost on a par with 5 Guys in New Jersey. It was well cooked with a real grilled taste, and crisp on the outside. A real pleasure, and it was a pity that it was not a little larger. It was hot and scored an 8.7 on the CHOF scale. The fries were a little limp and the top few could have been hotter. You can also see the salt beef sandwich and chicken soup that my daughter chose.
This was pretty good and exceeded my expectations, and it is actually not easy to get a quality burger in London. Most are solid and indifferently cooked. This crumbled and was a joy to chew. There was a little pat of relish that you can see on the plate, but that is not my thing, and I only ate it because it was there.
I add this picture of my post lunch cappuccino for two reasons. Firstly because it now holds my record for most expensive cup of coffee (£4.95) and secondly because of the debate about why we had a glass of water with the coffee. We asked the staff, and we were told that it was for us to rinse the spoon. However a more convincing explanation from the Internet is that the tradition of serving a glass of water with coffee dates back to 1685 in Vienna. In brief, in the traditional Kaffeehaus’s, serving a glass of water with coffee was a way of showing better hospitality and service. The proprietor would encourage guests to stay a while, read the paper and leave at their leisure. Pretentious or what? I rate the Wolseley as pretentious but practical, and on a Sunday lunchtime, the fact that some seemed to be using the place to eat rather than be seen made me feel more comfortable.
I enjoyed the experience and the food and would be pleased to eat their food again.
No comments:
Post a Comment