Chez Bruce

My wife's salad of pea shoots and baby gem heart with a pea puree and ricotta featured pleasant fresh leaves with a little balsamic vinegar, but was not a patch on the salad at Zafferano I had two nights ago (barely 15/20). Better was quail pithivier, two pieces of quail wrapped in pastry and served with a shallot puree, mushroom duxelle and an excellent reduction of red wine, thick and full of flavour (16/20).  

For main course, lemon sole was served as fillets with a rather tasteless scallop mousse in between the fillets, shellfish feuilette (small prawns with a little pastry) with a few mussels, some samphire and a pleasant beurre blanc flavoured with chives.  The fish was cooked correctly but the scallop mousse was bland (15/20). I fared better with duck cassoulet, featuring tender haricot beans, braised bacon, a miniature Savoy cabbage stuffed with duck, a small fan of duck slices and a little salsa verde. Perhaps there was one flavour too many here, but the duck was good and the earthy flavours benefitted from the subtle salsa verde (16/20).

For dessert honeycomnb ice cream was nicely made, served with very good tuiles (15/20). Slightly better was a millefeuille of chocolate and pistachio with a few griottine cherries; the chocolate was high grade valrhona chocolate and the dish worked well (16/20). Coffee was pleasant (15/20) though a sugar pastry offered with it was actually hard and dry. Service was generally good, with one or two topping up lapses but friendly and attentive. Overall the meal was just about 16/20, but only just. Ingredients were pleasant but not top drawer e.g. the rather ordinary salad leaves, though execution was generally capable. They are applying for planning permission to extend the dining room into the next door shop; if this happens it will be done during August 2007. Prices were £37.50 for three courses, with a £10 supplement for cheese. Coffee was extra at £3.50.

Further reviews: 10th Nov 2017 | 23rd Apr 2011 | 03rd Jan 2008