Restaurants

By Guy Dimond

The Saatchi Gallery has opened this fabulous new brasserie in May 2009. You can sit inside surrounded by modern art, but the grounds outside – littered with portable tables until 6pm, if the weather's fair – can be a more attractive option in the summer. The catering is by Rhubarb, best-known for their very upmarket events catering; no wonder our dishes looked like overgrown canapes. For example, a chargrilled chicken breast arrived with a mug-sized frying basket of chips (nicely moist inside, oil-free on the outside) for an added bit of ooh factor.

There's a simple breakfast menu of pastries, eggs and toast or fry-up served until 11.30am. The lunch and dinner menu includes the expected salads, pastas and burger, but the day’s specials are far more ambitious. Steamed salmon was served up in a yellow ‘curry’ broth that tasted like 1970s kedgeree; a playfully-flavoured dish, with the fish nicely cooked. Saddle of lamb was presented like a steak, drizzled with a zig-zag of yoghurt; beneath it, couscous flavoured with red pepper and jasmine-infused sultanas. This was less successful as the lamb had an outer rind of tough fat, and the couscous was a little soggy.

For dessert, the knickerbocker glory was a triumph. The sundae glass was stuffed with good quality fruit-flavoured ices and topped with a freshly-made, buttery shortbread biscuit, instead of the expected cardboard-like wafer.

On our visit in the opening weeks the service was over-attentive to the point of pestering us, but this is likely to calm down after the initial opening nerves.

Time Out June 2009