The interior of the restaurant is stark. I don’t like to sound flash but it reminded me of Cape Town’s ‘The Test Kitchen’ – also the hottest ticket in that town and allegedly Heston’s favourite Cape Town haunt. Dabbous is a smaller place and its kitchen hidden away whereas in The Test Kitchen, the open kitchen is a feature in the middle of the restaurant. But the unadorned look and feel was similar.
A protégé of Raymond Blanc and Agi Sverisson at Texture, chef Oli Dabbous is well used to working with Michelin starred royalty and, I would say, is now chasing his very own first Michelin star.
We started with cocktails in the cavernous, subterranean bar. The cocktail menu is very varied, unusual even and we were asked whether we’d like any guidance. Aided by the waiter, we chose our beautifully presented drinks but agreed they were somewhat lacking in alcohol. We had to request something to nibble and were given a teeny, weeny dear little white bowl of cashews – just about enough for two nuts each – but more of that later.
Onward and upstairs to our table where the menus were difficult to read even with my glasses on although my companions claimed to have no difficulty – with their glasses on. I really must make an appointment to investigate laser eye surgery. This is happening far too often.
We decided to order a la carte rather than the tasting menu at £54 per head. I mention this only because in Raymond Blanc’s review dated January 2012, he refers to £49 per head for the tasting menu. So, get there quick because at that rate, in two years time, the price will be up at almost £80 per head (if you compound the six monthly 10% rise). The staff seemed a little put out when we ordered a la carte and said that we’d really need to order at least a total of four dishes each – two starters and two mains – as they were very small. Oh my, shades of 1981 and the accidentally most expensive meal I'd ever had at that stage at AWT's Ménage a trois.
Our bread came out in a brown paper bag – sort of an incongruous gimmick. We were told it was homemade soda bread with all sorts of stuff in it and it came with apparently homemade butter on a little slate. The bread was really delicious – the butter was too salty.
The starters were by and large excellent (in a tiny sort of way) although my first, a concoction of allium (that’s a bulbous plant of a genus that includes the onion and its relatives, e.g., garlic, leek, and chives – but I’m sure you knew that) in a cold, clear liquid with a herbed oil floating on top – ach, I could take it or leave it. The others raved about the smoked egg and we all agreed that the ‘pea and mint’ – a sort of thick, cold mint soup-come-sauce with goodies in it was just to die for.
Two of us had the Iberico pork and two had the lamb for mains. The pork was heralded as ‘the best pork I’ve ever eaten’ by both men. The lamb was very good – but not the best I’ve ever eaten. In fact, I’ve eaten better lamb cooked by my husband – but it’s one of his specialities.
What we didn’t understand is that they clearly serve the tiny sized, tasting menu portions as their a la carte versions. Why do they do that? Why not scale up, charge a little more and serve proper sized portions so that people don’t have to order two starters and two main courses? If I were Oli, I’d re-think that.
For the duration of the meal, the service was irritating and bordering on amateur. My wine glass was removed a total of three times despite the table's wine bottle being half full and my having asked them not to take it away. Go know. There was a lot of leaning across the table to serve food and to take plates away – hasn’t anyone trained these people – and they got the starter order wrong not once, but twice. It was a bit strange really. They were all very posh but slightly odd too.
The evening wasn’t helped by the two men in our party having a few too many sherbets resulting in some very boring and repetitive conversation which went like this:
Man 1: The food really is very, very good.
Man 2: Yes, very good – but the service is amateurish.
Man 1: Yes, that’s a shame because the food really is excellent, even though the service isn’t very good.
Man 2: Well, the food is really good but it’s let down by the service.
Man 1: The service is terrible which is a shame because the food has been excellent.
… and so on, ad naseum.
My dessert was ridiculous. The description was ‘peach in it’s own juice’ which led me to think it would be a whole fruit or perhaps half in some delicious sauce. What came out was a small slice of peach, less than a quarter of a fruit, in a juice. Rather disappointing. My other half had a creamy, bananaery concoction, which he enjoyed (he likes a banana), and our friends both had cheese – pretty generous portions.
Now let’s re-visit the teeny, weeny, inadequate bowl of cashews. It came up on the bill at £3.00 which we all though outrageous, a real ‘spoiler’. Other than that, the cost was reasonable for what we had – although we’d have liked to have paid a little more and not left feeling slightly hungry.
The big test is – would we go back there? Well, far be for me to disagree with the doyens of eating but I largely just didn’t get it. Yes, some of the food (not all of it) was spectacular but the concept needs a little adjusting if it’s going to work in the long run. The very reason we went off-piste was so as not to have to have the tiny tasting portions. Ho hum. So the answer is no – at least for the moment.
