|
Lunch at The Victoria
in Richmond
The idea of a walk in Richmond Park evaporated the second
the clouds burst and my friend and I scurried for shelter
to The Victoria.
A pub, restaurant and local guesthouse, The Victoria is
owned by TV chef Paul Merrett and restaurateur Greg Bellamy,
a very personable chap who greeted us in.
The breezy dining room makes like a conservatory with streams
of natural light glancing off the dark wood furnishings,
while rowdy chatter bounces off the glass. Make no mistake,
the clientele here ooze the kind of casual wealth you find
around Richmond and its environs: extended, polite families
with well-behaved children in candy-striped leggings; a
trio of silver-haired ladies lunching.
We stopped spying and started eating. My friend’s
butternut chowder with fresh chilli, coconut and coriander
was supreme, delicately balanced with exacting flavours
and great value for £5. As an experiment I was intrigued
by the spiced chicken bhuna salad with grilled courgette,
dried tomato, onion bhajis and minted yoghurt, but none
of it held together and the bhaji/bhuna was a strange combo.
I couldn’t fault my grilled fillet of sea trout with
English asparagus and crushed new potatoes - a technically
perfect dish where the lemon foam defined the simplicity
of the key ingredients with excellence. My companion waited
for at least half an hour for her fennel, chickpea and apricot
tagine with cous cous and coriander yoghurt (the only vegetarian
dish on the main menu) only to exclaim: ‘where’s
the apricot?’ It was true, we tasted only moats of
tomato, a fact the accommodating Mr Bellamy swore to look
into later.
For the kid in you dessert offers chocolate and peanut
brownie cookies with white chocolate sauce and peanut butter
icecream, which we washed down with a citrusy 2007 Els Pyreneus,
La Cote de Flamant Picpoul de Pinet for £19 a bottle
. There are over 90 reasonably-priced wines, from Champagne
to dessert, chosen by Olly Smith, sommelier and wine writer.
On the whole, The Victoria is tasteful, understated and
confident. There are ethics underpinning this too. Food
is mainly sourced from accredited schemes and fresh from
the producer - fish from Falmouth, mussels from the Norfolk
coast. The homemade bread is fresh and moist and with a
blush of cinnamon, and as we began the waddle home, we stumbled
upon The Priory clinic, a sign that everything in this area,
from weekend boltholes to The Victoria itself, offer a little
retreat from central London’s throng.
Anita Pati
See the website at: http://www.thelondonword.com/
|
