Last night we went to the OXO Tower Restaurant Bar & Brasserie, in — you guessed it already — the OXO Tower on London’s South Bank. Located on the 8th floor, this venue not suprisingly sports some rather pleasant views of London’s skyline.
Curiously this restaurant is operated by Harvey Nichols, a department store specializing in upper segment– & luxury brands. Our experience, at the end, seems to suggest that this business’s venture into the realm of cuisine should be taken with a grain of salt.
After taking our coats, we were led to the table for two by a lady from the very friendly & helpful staff. This table was right next to another table already taken by another couple. The proximity of the tables seemed a little bit strange to me, given the posh feeling the place seemingly wanted to induce. The last time I sat that close to other people dining was an unfortunate evening that had me eating at Hamburger Union …
The view itself was great. It was around 21.00 when we rocked up at the restaurant, so the city’s fully lit skyline provided the backdrop for our dining experience.
Already our first order, the water, was a letdown. The water glasses emenated the slight odor of fish which is plain ridiculous for any place but even more so this one. The restaurant would be well advised to wash all glasses separate from the plates.
Both wine glasses had slight stains like you often get from dishwashers if you don’t bother to polish the glasses with a towel afterwards. No biggy but an obviously not very reassuring observation for guests to make when they sit down at a place featuring prices like those found in the OXO Tower Restaurant. My wine glass also had some finger prints on it so I had to ask for a replacement.
The Allende 2002 Rioja we choose turned out a very nice red that went certainly well with the mushrooms in our mains later. It didn’t clash with the salmon I had as a starter either, thanks to the latter being quite a bit savory. At almost 40£ a bottle one would have hoped for more than it ultimately delivered though. This is not at all the wine’s fault but must rather be credited wholly to the expectations the price tag had set. I wouldn’t expect to pay more that 20€ for a wine of this quality in a restaurant on the continent. I found this wine selling for 30£ a bottle online in the UK. Although this is pure speculation I’d imagine that Harvey Nichols could probably source it for less than 15£ a bottle which would leave a bit of room for a good margin at under 30£.
While on the subject of drinks: the staff was oddly exerted keeping our glasses filled. Oddly because we definitely had to attend the matter ourselves a few times while on a several other occasions throughout our meal the waiter would top up our glasses without any apparent need; i.e. putting more wine in them than is advisable as it doesn’t leave enough space in the glass for the wine to breathe. Particularly as the Allende is a wine with a bit residuum that would call for a decanter being used ideally, to help the wine develop its full aroma.
For starters I had some pan-grilled salmon on a bed of chopped onions with red pepper corns, capers & rocket (around 10£). The salmon would be quite a tad salty for a lot of people, but being a person that often adds salt, it was perfect for me. The dish was simple & otherwise flawlessly executed.
After the good entrees, we were given less than four and a half minutes (!) before the mains arrived. My question if this was supposedly “fast food” was ignored (or kindly overheard) by the waitress delivering them.
We had both ordered the mushroom pasta (around 17£) which turned out to be quite nice and this time not exceedingly salted; although the gravy was very rich.
The plates were slightly warmed but not properly and the food was also not very hot. This left us no with choice but to start eating the mains immediately and meant we couldn’t stretch out too long, to make up for the rushed serving. Or else we would eat cold pasta.
I couldn’t help to think that this might be intentional to keep the turnaround of guests higher. Obviously people dining for several hours is a rare occasion in a country lacking a broad culture of food as much as the UK. But certainly it would befit a place pushing for a dignified impression to allow at least 10 minutes, better 15, between clearing the table & serving the next course.
After we had started the mains the waiter suddely showed up and cleaned our table from some bread crumbs that were left over from the starters — while we were eating. This is annoying at best and one wonders why the window of about four minutes between the courses hadn’t been utilized to carry this task out.
Because of the tight serving and the temperature problems we did have to eat slightly rushed. We nevertheless put our cutlery down for a few minutes towards the end to allow the food to settle in our stomachs and attend the wine properly. We both did put it the cutlery down at 4 and 8 o’clock on the plate, clearly signalling we weren’t done.
However, after spotting us not eating for a minute, the waiter showed up and asked if we were done and already started reaching for my plate both not waiting for my answer and ignoring the clear sign the cutlery made. I refrain from commenting but can’t help to say that this rather didn’t help dispelling the slight fast food impression that had build up by now.
After eating the mains so quickly, we had almost half of the bottle of wine left. As the restaurant had cleared, tables with a better view than ours had become available. We were very kindly offered to move to one of these tables for dessert.
We shared a dark chocolate mousse with infused cherries. Nothing special but absolutely ok for the price and size served.
All in all our OXO Tower Restaurant experience was just flawed with a few too many mistakes by the staff to justify its prices. Particularly for someone living in London anyway. If you’re a tourist and more interested in the view, it might be worth your while.
The bar could be a good (and cheaper) alternative, if only it weren’t on the other side with the windows facing south; Thus the view from there isn’t even close to that in the restaurant.
RSS feed for comments on this post. / TrackBack URI