Celebrity chef restaurants are everywhere in London. I tried a couple of them during my stay.

The title of the post coincides with the current weather in London – Cold & wet but I’m certainly not complaining. 🙂

Bread Street Kitchen
by Gordon Ramsay

[LEFT] Bread Street Kitchen – Located in Bread Street. Just a stone throw away from the office.  I love food related street names! 🙂
[RIGHT] High ceiling, mismatched sofas and a corporate crowd.

Eggs Benedict with Mushrooms on the side

Two nicely poached eggs & thick slices of ham sitting prettily on a large muffin. Eggs Benny is always a crowd pleaser but the star here was the well-flavoured juicy mushrooms!

Jamie’s Italian
by Jamie Oliver

I did. 🙂

[LEFT] Prawn Linguine – Fried garlicky prawns with shaved fennel, tomatoes, chilli & rocket
[RIGHT] Sausage Papperdelle – Slow-braised fennel sausage with parmesan & breadcrumbs.

The former is good and the latter is great. It’s my first time trying this type of pasta (Papperdelle) and I love it. According to Wikipedia – Pappardelle are large & very broad fettuccine. They are wide and have fluted edges – Just imagine the shape of a magnified maggie mee. 😛 The crunchy breadcrumbs added a lot of texture to this dish. I would definitely re-order this in my next visit.

Limoncello Tiramisu – WOW! I’m glad that I took the recommendation and chose this seasonal dessert.

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon
by Joel Robuchon

L’Atelier’s signature counter seats overseeing the well-designed open kitchen. The chefs worked in a quick & synchronized manner.

[LEFT] Langoustine Ravioli with Savoy Cabbage and Foie Gras Sauce – A dish that made me a Robuchon convert. It is good as expected but somehow not as memorable as the ones served in Singapore.

[RIGHT] Seared Duck Foie Gras with Roasted Peaches and Pistachio. This was served together with Robuchon’s signature mashed potatoes. – Easily the best foie gras i ever had! This dish would score a perfect 10 if only the roasted peaches were a little sweeter.

Ice-cream and Sorbets

FROM LEFT –
Mixed Herbs Sorbet – Imagine a Vietnamese spring roll explosion in the mouth. Clearly a big no-no.
Pear Sorbet – Not exactly near the refreshing taste that I expected.
Banana Ice-cream – It tasted like eating real bananas. Not bad…but not good either.

Obviously, I did not make the right dessert choice – This is nothing like the pleasant Vegas experience I had.  😦

Aqua Nueva
By Alberto Hernandez

Not a “celebrity chef” yet but judging from the crowd – he might be one soon. Alberto trained under Ferran Adria in the 3 michelin starred elbulli before setting up Aqua.

My friend picked Aqua after she failed to get us a reservation in Maze. It’s interesting to see how she converted from a “eat to live” believer to a “live to eat” Michelin starred restaurants hopper (See how working in the world’s top consulting firm can change you. :D)

[LEFT] Assorted Tapas – Aqua Nueva serves contemporary Spanish cuisine and tapas. We had a few rounds of tapas and they were all quality food.
[RIGHT] Textures of Chocolate – The dark chocolate dessert was awesome! The pairing dessert wine (with notes of dry raisins & dates) augmented the overall flavour of this signature dessert.

Selection of Spanish Cheese – I enjoyed the variety on this plate. We spent the last hour in our dinner wine, cheese, chat, wine, cheese, chat…………. 😛

Overall – London is a food heaven with plenty of big names in the culinary world. Let’s hope that I made it to The Fat Duck  in my next visit!