An Evening at The Dorchester - The Grill and The Bar

Amuse bouche - smoked trout pate with cucumber jelly and breadcrumbs. Love, love, love!Lightly smoked fish, crunchy breadcrumbs and cool, cucumber jelly.

I had an absolutely lovely time at The Dorchester recently and though I would never have thought to say this about somewhere as associated with the phrase 'hoity toity' as The Dorchester it was a really chilled out, relaxed evening. I've been to a smattering of fancy restaurants around London (One-O-One, Pearl by Jun Tanaka to name a few) and I have never failed to be impressed by the pompousness that drip off the staff like a melting glacier. One-O-One was a particularly horrible experience (lovely food but such bad, bad, BAD service) but I was so horrified at the merciless post that I wrote on it I never got round to publishing it. Why? Because I was racked with guilt (stupid softy that I am sometimes) and because I had such a bad time I didn't think it was a particularly fair piece of writing. But I do stand by the fact that my evening was abominable.Moving on, back to The Dorchester.

Warm bread and butter (warmed to a spreadable consistency)

Every couple months or so NS and I meet up. That's when I turn to my trusty Toptable account and start rustling around. A little oo-ing and ahh-ing later a table for 2 at The Grill was booked was booked for 7.45 PM. Giving us just enough time for a drink at The Bar, as all good meals start (and end) with a drink. I whet my apatite with a Milky Way (sounds terribly childish but terribly refreshing with lemon grass, lychee and lemon juice, rose cordial and soda water) - yes, non-alcoholic as age has taught me that it is either food or alcohol with my tummy. Mix them together and suffer the consequences. NS goes down the alcoholic route (it's the Scottish blood in her and she heartily agrees!) with a G&T. Lovely service and with added deliciousness of warm canapés that make the rounds every half an hour or so (we were served dauphinoise potatoes on a Chinese spoon - so freakin' good! Or maybe I was just hungry).

Incredibly fresh Mackerel starter

Leaving our coats with the staff at The Bar, we made our way across the gallery to The Grill (love how it's all The around here) with all it's Scottish pride furnishings - think head to toe tartan and paintings of long gone Scottish heroes in their kilted finery. It's absolutely dotty but incredibly comfortable at the same time. Greeted and seated in no time - so quiet mid week. The one dip in the evening came at this point. We were left drink-less, menu-less and all round service-less for a good 10 minutes. Just when the restaurant was sinking rapidly in my estimation, the restaurant manager made his way round to us and introduced our server to us and told us that our menus would be with us shortly. Right after that service perked straight up and kept on a steady high. So what was that dip all about? I told you they were a little dotty in this place. It probably doesn't help with all those ashen faced, long dead Scottish dudes staring down on you all day from those walls.

Chicken livers with mango. I imagined this to be a parfait. A little surprised when this arrived. Pleasantly so. The mango could have done with a little more punch. Livers were well cooked.

Main of salmon with spinach, puy lentils, celeriac mash and scallop foam. Crispy skin salmon, creamy mash. The sauce that accompanied the lentils were a little too strong and meaty for this dish.

Main of roasted pork belly with mash and kale. This was one humongous portion. I was very nearly jealous when I saw this. If only I liked roast pork a bit more. And that crackling .. it had big roar of a crackle. The only trouble with this size a portion of pork belly is that some bits are whole lot more tender than other

Petit fours - (left to right from the top photo) salted caramel chocolate truffle (runny oozy salted caramel centre), apple tart (buttery with sweet/tart fruit), fruity macaron (indecipherable fruit flavour with a very soft marshmallow-y shell - not my favourite), rum baba (interestingly not drenched in alcohol like others I have, very nice it was), fruit jelly pastille (generally I heartily dislike fruit pastilles but this was fruity, soft and wobbly - delicious) and a sugar encrusted marshmallow (marshmallows, argh!)

Filled to the brim, we signaled for the bill and proceeded to wobble our way back to The Bar. The bill was heartily reasonable - £25 for 2 courses and a glass of bubbly (or £29 for 3 courses with the bubbly) from the set menu. The à la carte menu has the usual blow your blow your purse away.

Back at The bar, we perched ourselves at the bar (ah hemm..) and prettily asked the bartender for him to mix up a couple of post dinner cocktails for us. He obliged by shaking up a as yet unlisted on the menu gin based cocktail for NS - my one sip reminded me of English summer breezes in the sunshine. No idea what went into his shaker other than the obvious gin and cucumber. It was one heck of a cocktail that came with a pretty big price tag. Boozy cocktails start from £15. NS reckons she paid about £30 .... but I have my suspicions that she might have misread the bill after her 3rd glass ;)

I wuss(iciously) kept off the booze for the evening with a 2nd Milky Way (more than a little too tart and not as good as the first) and ventured down the menu with a not so great Thai Lemonade (coriander, lime, orgeat, and ginger beer). Boo! Next time I'll have to keep off the food and stick to the booze :) A big thank you to NS for settling the bar bill. The next time it'll be on me (Starbucks does great chocolate milkshake like drink =)

The Grill
The Dorchester, Park Lane, London W1K 1QA