London on a gilded shoestring – Day 2 – Part 2

After our walk around Piccadilly Circus, we headed over to Parlour at Sketch for some tea and treats. Sketch is a bit of a concept destination, which some consider exciting, playful and elegant while others can’t get past the prices on the menu. Sketch is divided into several sections, including a restaurant and a brasserie/bar, and an art space. Parlour is the cafe and patisserie section. The chef patron of the establishment is Michellin-starred French chef, Pierre Gagnaire – he designed the menu, but he doesn’t actually cook there.

As we didn’t wander around, I can’t speak for the other sections (I’ve been told that even the toilets are .. interesting), but Parlour has an artsy/bohemian feel to it, with it’s elaborate chandeliers, plush armchairs and paper menus tucked between the pages of old books. Almost Melbourne-ish. There are little financiers, brownies and tea cakes you can order from the display, or you can also have something from the menu. B selects a chocolate cake elaborately tiered with matching chocolate/caramel mousses and ganaches while I opt for the violet flavoured (thankfully not violently coloured – pastel purple is OK) macaroon topped with blueberries. Both are delicious. To drink, I request a chai tea from the long list of available teas. It arrives in a flowery pot with a dainty bone china cup to pour the tea into – which really makes an occasion out of taking tea!

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As we were having dinner late, we stopped by Harrods in Knightsbridge first. Harrods is a bit of a maze inside. You could walk from one room to another, almost never encountering the same room twice. What I really wanted to see, after negotiating the perfume and cosmetic rooms, and the shoe and handbag rooms (which did stop me in my tracks for a moment or two) was the food hall. It’s like the David Jones Food Hall, but x2 in size, opulence and extravagance. And you can’t eat your purchases in there, which I think is a bit silly. All the unpasteurised cheeses in the Fromagerie made me drool. We bought a bit of Fleur du Marquis for N and M. There was also a La Maison du Chocolat counter (where we later got a florentine and a round chocolate thing that looked like a rum ball but tasted better), and a branch of Laduree. We bought a selection of macaroons at Laduree, for nostalgia value, having visited the Laduree in Paris. Fans of SATC might recall that the Parisian Laduree made a brief appearance in an episode when Carrie goes to live in Paris with the Russian. In one scene, she is in the tea room, looking glamorously lonely amongst the beautiful cakes and pastries. No photography was allowed within Laduree, and inexplicably, we didn’t end up taking any pictures of the macaroons we were too busy eating once we were out of the building. Let me just say though, that the salted caramel macaroon was the best of the Laduree macaroons that we tried that day (the other two were pistachio and red fruits).

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After Harrods, it was off to St. John in Smithfield for dinner. St. John is famed for head chef (and co-owner) Fergus Henderson’s Nose-to-Tail approach to eating. Walk through the smoking room, the bar and bakery, and up a small set of stairs and you have reached his restaurant, which I’m told is mostly patronised by the artsy crowd. It’s a sparsely decorated room with a partially visible kitchen to the left. I like the coathanger hooks that line the walls of the room. Great for if you’re paranoid about having your coat taken away from you. The simplicity of the room carries on to the lack of pretension with which the dishes are presented. It made me feel as though the quality of the ingredients were allowed to speak for themselves. We started with a salad of skate, bread and a green sauce. For the main, B had a special of Hare with Braised Cabbage which he couldn’t stop raving about. The hare was barely cooked; just seared on the outside and was so beautifully moist and tender. As for me, I couldn’t go past the famed Roast Bone Marrow with Parsley Salad. La Sala in Sydney does a similar dish, but I’ve been told it’s not a patch on the St. John original. Four tree stumps of marrow-filled bones stand tall on the plate, which you delve into with the provided crab picker. The scrapings of marrow can then be spread onto pieces of grilled sourdough, sprinkled with grey sea salt and topped with some parsley salad to add balance to the richness of the whole dish.

For dessert, B had the Apple Sorbet with Polish Vodka and I had the Eccles cake with Lancashire Cheese. You may remember that I had a go at making Fergus Henderson’s Eccles cakes in the past. The result was pretty good, but I wondered what it was really meant to look and taste like. Well now I know. The cake is incredible with the slice of crumbly Lancashire cheese. Cutting through the pastry unleashes the sweet and spicy currants within. I was quite full at this stage, but couldn’t stop nibbling at more cheese and more of the sweet, crispy cake, until it was all gone. Later, we stumbled out, very happy and very full. Of all the places we ended up visiting during our time in London, this (and later, Le Gavroche also) was one of the restaurants we definitely wanted to return to.

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Parlour at Sketch
9 Conduit Street,
London W1S 2XG

Ladurée at Harrods
87/135 Brompton Road
London SW1X 7XL

St. John Restaurant
26 St John Street
London EC1M 4AY

Next : Day 3 : Borough Markets, South Bank, Paul A. Young, Petrus and a surprise.

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