Restaurants

Prism’s main room is a beauty – grand and high-ceilinged, with artworks dotted around the walls. For our same-day booking, however, we were offered the ‘conservatory’, which is little more than a glass-roofed corridor of tables. Prices and clientele are as you’d expect for a restaurant almost opposite the Lloyd’s building. The food combines pretty, picky, ladies-who-lunch presentation with hearty, by-the-balls City-boy components. Thus canon of salt marsh lamb with fondant potatoes was accompanied by a basil mousse topped with a flash-fried basil leaf; and monkfish with fennel choucroute and smoked bacon was exquisitely presented with a swirl of celeriac purée mottled with shavings of black truffle and pea shoots. The dishes weren’t faultless; the choucroute’s vinegariness did the fennel few favours in the monkfish dish, while a swordfish carpaccio’s show-off oyster tempura was sullen and soggy rather than crisp and light. The cheerfully self-possessed service was exemplified by our waiter opening a bottle of Galician albariño specially to pour us a single glass; otherwise, the wine list is for City gents, but manageable if you’re willing to spend up to £35.

Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008