Honey and Co

Honey & Co

25A Warren Street, 

London 

W1T 5LZ

http://honeyandco.co.uk

SN: Honey & Co is a small, well-regarded establishment on Warren Street, overlooked by the Post Office tower.  They serve what they describe as "food from the Middle East" completely underplaying the excellence of the cuisine.  They have a great reputation.  It is a compact space with a large window at the front, a few tables outside and there is a large counter at the other end groaning with cakes.  The menu is absolutely about Middle Eastern food and its delicate flavour combinations and it is impressive in it's range which changes regularly too.

We started with the Luxury Mezze with six or seven dishes which were just a treat:

First few dishes in the Mezze

LM: everything was delicious and so well balanced. The quality of the ingredients is really clear - the hummous, for example, is smooth and delicate, a million miles away from the gritty, garlicky rubbish you get in a lot of places. Feta cigars had a lovely crunch to them, and there was a good balance of salads to go with the heavier dishes.

tomato and sheeps curd

feta filo cigars with honey

SN: this was very impressive mezze - the dark crusted bread was just gorgeous and at every turn there was something to divert and delight.  And echo what LM said about the hummous - a smooth texture I hadn't encountered at all and none of the cloying after-taste of the worst attempts I've suffered.  There was plenty for two of us.  Colour, flavour and texture brilliantly covered across a range of simple but elegant dishes.

Persian meatballs in yoghurt sauce

SN: It was hard to choose a main course: my decision was based mostly on curiosity about how a yoghurt sauce might match meatballs.  It was just divine with peas and pea shoots and mint balancing the gently spiced lamb meatballs with even more luxurious tastes.  Again I was struck by the high quality ingredients, simple ideas and delightful sense of discovery in this dish. When Honey & Co present a dish it's without fuss, but the real satisfaction is in the tastes and textures that they leave you to explore.

lentil and carrot kofta

LM: my main was a lentil and carrot kofta with carrot and walnut salad and tahini (which you can't see, but was underneth the kofta). Absolutely gorgeous dish - lighter than it looks, the kofta had a lovely crunch to them and were soft and spicy on the inside.

Cold cheesecake, kadaif pastry, honey

LM: My dessert was probably the least exciting of the courses for me - a little bit too much cheesecake topping and not enough pastry base, although the sugared nuts and honey gave it a glorious edge. I had dessert envy over SN's choice...

Warm pistachio and goats cheese baklava with set lemon saffron cream

SN: LM was right to suffer dessert envy.  I like baklava very occasionally and I was interested in the Honey & Co take on it: I was ready for something sickly but there was none of that.  It was the highlight of the meal in every sense.  Delicious understated filling, rich in the fullest sense of the word, delicate pastry and the gorgeous cream to set it off and provide a vivid sense of the Middle East sun. The striking colours, textures and tastes sum up all that I really enjoyed at Honey & Co: nothing offends, mostly it intrigues and everything is of a very high quality.

We didn't get round to cake

SN: But there was a problem - having put all that effort into the food, they fell flat on their faces on customer services.

We were 1 hour 52 minutes into our allowed 2 hours when we were presented with a bill.  This was galling - I'd had no time for a coffee, I was thinking about more wine and even toying with the idea of another dessert (on the advice of Itamar Srulovich who had just responded to a question I had just tweeted).  It was a greater disappointment to be moved on in such a perfunctory, charmless way. Had the service been lightning fast throughout I might have felt the restaurant had kept it's side of the bargain - but it wasn't.  Service was poor: we waited five minutes for our member of staff to get off the phone to order dessert.  When we ordered the sweet no sense of the impending exclusions was given - she could have had one more sale if she had recommended we ordered coffee at the same time as ordering dessert.  At one point a different person came back to check our order.  I don't think they were doing everything they could to maximise our enjoyment in that 2 hours.

This is a venue where you will have great food - food in truth worth more than they charge for it - but a meal out is more than that - especially for us.

I guess the owners might argue that they would prefer to offend a few people by moving them on than risk having empty tables.  There was a queue of people waiting, but it seemed fewer than the seats available.  But with our departure and the departure of a large birthday party party at the same time, a lot of space was freed up.  The overall impression left for me is that are not well enough organised - certainly that's how it felt. No one awards prizes for restaurants that turn round tables quickly.  They should pay a visit to the Regency Cafe in Pimlico which has a system which shows it can be done. I won't be going back.

They may excuse this by saying that all the other restaurants do it: our experience is that whilst other restaurants may say that, they very rarely do it. So a sad end to a great food experience and if you are booking - beware the sting in the tail!

Grain Store Unleashed

Grain Store Unleashed

St John's Square, 

86-88 Clerkenwell Road, 

London 

EC1M 5RJ

Phone: +44 (0)20 7324 4455

eat@thezetter.com

SN: Grain Store Unleashed is the re-invention of Bruno Loubet's Bistro deep in Clerkenwell hosted in the Zetter Hotel.  It has relaunched recently and we were lucky enough to get a table shortly after the re-opening.  It is a light and airy, casual style eateries during the day and something a bit mor intimate at night.  We went for Sunday Lunch (a rarity for Split the Bill) to see how it matched up to one of our favourite venues - Grain Store at Kings Cross which we first visited for this blog in Oct 2013 and again more recently in February.  We are still big fans - read how Unleashed stacked up....

As you can see - it's a nice spacious spread of tables with a busy bar and a Spring-like French garden feel about it.

Rhubarb Negroni

SN: It's worth just pausing a moment on Grain Store cocktails - always simple on the page and complex and entertaining on the palate.  This Rhubarb Negroni attracted us both.  The Italian Aperol provided rhubarb and floral flavours whilst the Lillet Blanc (a mix of Bordeaux white wine and exotic citrus bitters) provided a foil to that.  The triangle completed with a robust Beefeater Gin.   Fantastic.

Crozes-Hermitage Les Pontaix 2013, Domaine Fayolle, N. Rhône, France 

SN: This wine was on offer as a bin end in February so unlikely to be around now.  But robust enough to cope with the avalanche of flavours.  We know that if nothing else Loubet squeezes every ounce of flavour out of his ingredients and everything needs a pretty robust wine to balance it.

Cornbread with avocado butter

LM: We started our meal with complimentary cornbread with avocado butter. The cornbread was hot and fresh with crunchy seasalt flakes and the avocado butter was spiked with lime to cut through the richness. A very encouraging start...

Vegetal oyster & caviar, ‘Bottom of the Sea’

SN: This was a curious starter and I was expecting something that made more immediate impact but it did excite the taste buds.  A bit more explanation from the staff might have helped I think.  The overall package is very much of 'the sea'.  I enjoy date seaweed sheet a little more than the oysters - the caviar was delicious but the pickle puree was fine on its own without the onion.

Asparagus in brown butter, pomelo & bronze fennel

LM: Asparagus was a really interesting dish - not particularly adventurous looking on the plate, and for a moment I wondered whether I had picked badly, but thankfully not - the asparagus was dressed with what can only be described as magic butter - sweet and tart without being sour, and fantastically complimentary to the asparagus.

Spring vegetable cassoulet, pulled lamb shoulder

SN: The strong broth beneath this dish would have been sufficient on it's own but with carrots, peas beans and epic poached white radish this was already one of the best dishes I've had at a Loubet restaurant.  The pulled lamb was very finely balanced against these lovely delicate veggie tastes.  As usual Loubet gets these subtleties just right.  Idea for a snack or a light lunch this dish was rich enough for a main course and so hearty as to leave me comfortably full.

Kohlrabi & broad bean raviolo, ramson

LM: Raviolo was gorgeous, the filling wrapped in paper thin slices of kohlrabi rather than pasta and served in a rich broth of beans and peas. So simple but so well made, and I loved the lightness of it. Really generous portion as well - but all about the flavours rather than the bulk.

Parsnip & white chocolate cream, matcha tea, pink grapefruit & passion fruit gel, caramelised puffed oat

SN: this was something I'd yearned for: a decently done parsnip dessert.  Be in no doubt, it tastes primarily of parsnip but the white chocolate is a surprisingly low key accompaniment and looks just divine.  I recall when making homemade parsnip and apple soup, I always struggled to maintain a pure colour but this is spot on.  The oat adds one sort of bite and the gel quite another - it's a hefty kick of tartness that the cream needs.  The shade grown (and therefore very green) matcha tea is a beautiful complement too.  Delivered as a powder it is sparing but a welcome added dimension.

Lemon & strawberries petit pot, rosemary crumble

LM: My dessert was delicious but probably the least adventurous of the dishes. A layer of macerated strawberries was topped with a creamy lemon layer and freeze-dried strawberry coated crumble. I couldn't taste the rosemary but it was tasty nonetheless.

Gorgeous  coffee too!

LM: Overall I think it's fair to say we were both really impressed with the quality of cooking and the inventiveness on offer, and the service was exceptionally friendly and warm. There were a couple of minor glitches from the soft launch including a light spraying for us as the plants were being watered and being charged for the wrong bottle of wine, but both were quickly rectified and with no drama.