Three or four years ago, my parents and I had a really good meal at the Fourth Floor at Harvey Nichols Leeds. Although,I have to admit, I have absolutely no recollection of what I ate that day for lunch, I just remember queueing up at 12 noon sharp as they don't take reservations. I guess this is one reason why I am writing about my restaurant experiences so that I remember the good ones to introduce to parents and friends. Anyway, we decided to try out the Fifth Floor at Harvey Nichols London to see whether its of the same standard.
We walked in for Sunday lunch. It wasn't full, which in London is a bad sign and so I was a bit apprehensive. The decor as M puts it, was space-age like, minimalist and very white and blue. So on to our selections. For our starters, I ordered a smoked duck salad with parmesan croutons, pomengranate seeds and shallot dressing and M chose the eggs benedict. For our mains, because of a miscommunication between M and I, both of us ordered the same thing, stuffed chicken leg with truffles and mushrooms, braised lentils and a cream sauce. For dessert, we shared a pineapple cannelloni, with passion fruit, white chocolate sticks, mango sorbet and a raspberry dressing.
Verdict: Excellent meal. Not as good as the Savoy Grill but still of a very high standard. My smoked duck salad was a excellent blend of flavours, the burst of sweet juices from the pomegranate seeds, the crunchiness of the parmesan croutons and the sweet and sour taste of the shallot dressing. All these flavours complement the smoked duck and the salad well. No one flavour dominated the taste buds. The duck was lightly smoked. In all, the salad was light, natural and a good start to the meal. M's eggs benedict was well prepared as well. The thing about eggs benedict is that so many things can go wrong. You can make a mess of poaching the egg, something, which has happened to me in the past. The hollandaise sauce takes a lot of work to prepare if you are making it from scratch. Some cooks make it too rich such that it overpowers the taste of the ham and the egg. The chef at this restaurant performed all these tasks admirably (and of course she should, for the price we are paying). The hollandaise sauce was just right.
As for our mains, stuffed chicken with truffles and mushrooms, the chicken was (I think) poached for a while before placed under a grill so that the skin is brown and slightly crispy. It was poached to the point where the chicken is just cooked and slightly pink. It was moist and very tender. The only problem I had with this dish is that it's just a tad too salty. I am not too sure whether I have tried lentils before in my life but I really like it, soft and slightly crunchy, it went well with the cream sauce. Interestingly, this dish is almost identical to the one we had at the Connaught, another one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants and on checking the profile of the chef at this restaurant, we realised that she had worked with him before.
The dessert was literally bursting with fruitiness, raspberry, pineapple, passionfruit, mango but it tasted natural and I did not suffer from a overdose of sugar.
So a pretty good Sunday lunch, it's 26.50 pounds for three courses which is not so bad for the quality of the food. If you go on a weekday, it's only 17-19 pounds. The service was excellent (the waiters and waitresses smile!) and I needed that after my experience with the waiters at Sofra.
