Recently I had an excellent dinner at Orelle in Colmore Row. The restaurant had not been consistent in the past in the meals it served to its customers, I felt, but this dinner had completely pushed it up a level in my estimation and I was so pleased with it that I asked a friend to join me there for a midweek lunch. This would be a different experience as the sublime dinner I had eaten there shortly before had been served brilliantly by the smart and very professional front of house staff despite the extreme busy-ness of the restaurant that evening with tables being turned incessantly. This lunchtime was altogether more serene and slower paced and there was more opportunity to drink up one’s cocktail and graze on the dishes presented to us and goggle at the views.
Is anticipation the awful enemy of satisfaction? We both chose a crab starter - crabe - prettily presented dressed Brixham crab, avocado, with slices of Pink Lady apple, Melba toast-like pieces of sourdough and sunflower seeds somewhere or the other. It was edible but over seasoned and the price of £22 was excruciatingly ambitious, the company that Orelle owns is London-based and these were London prices. True we could have chosen the much more reasonably priced set lunch but what’s the point of setting out a menu of appealing dishes if they are not be available unless a sound financial penalty is paid?
We shared our main course which was for two - this was exquisite. Three magnificent slices of Chateaubriand - tender and delicious. The meat was all that was needed, it required nothing to distract the diner’s attention from it apart from the sauce. But there were two unglamorous carrots, far from perfectly cooked, trying to muscle in on the act and bask in the beef’s glory plus some terrible chips - stunted, pale and no more crispy than a sponge though cooked in some much vaunted beef fat and there was a dish of leaves which looked like they were still growing in an allotment somewhere or the other and looked better left alone to get on with their own business.
The dessert was pleasing - Fraisier des bois - a strawberry-flavoured white chocolate mousse in a strawberry-like white chocolate case with strawberry and hibiscus compote. It was refreshing and enjoyable and a happy end to a meal which seems to summarise Orelle - much that is good but inconsistent. Nevertheless, there’s always the Chateaubriand and the view.
Some highlights from the above-mentioned dinner I had eaten at Orelle a short time before going to the reported lunch -
This was an excellent tasting menu - delightful amuses gueules, excellent bread, a truly delightful and delicious ballotine of salmon (cured salmon with a perfect citric element coming from the kalamansi, an excellent heritage tomato dish with smoked burrata (at last, burrata with some flavour) and a silky gazpacho, well cooked, meaty halibut with a fine champagne beurre blanc, mellow-flavoured roast Sladesdown duck happily with beetroot and the the strawberry-white chocolate dessert mentioned above and looking just that little bit tidier than it did at the lunch I described.
Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛
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