Lunch at The Ledbury

My celebrations continued on Saturday, my actual birthday, with lunch at the Ledbury. James was planning to surprise me but I had a pretty good idea where he would be taking me, we've been dying to try out the 2 micheline starred restaurant for a good while. We got off to a rocky start when our table was not ready at 2.30pm as per our booking, and the receptionist did not offer us a drink or a seat, instead instructed us to stand and wait in the small entrance where we just felt in the way when people came to get there coats and umbrellas to leave. Luckily this was the only negative thing I have to say about the whole experience. The food was amazing and well deserving of its two stars. The staff were  friendly and not the atmosphere was not one bit stuffy. We started off with a glass of champagne, with it we had our amuse bouche of foise gras mousse with white peach in a crisp pastry case. We gobbled these up so quickly I never managed to get a photo.

We had the starters and main courses off the set lunch menu, which is a reasonable £30 for two
courses or £35 for three. For starters we both chose the roasted quail with giroles, fresh almonds and apricots. The dish was garnished with dandelion, which means lions tooth in french.

For mains I had the slow cooked beef short ribs with spinach puree and potato galette. James had the pan fried brill with licorice root, fennel and cockles. Both were equally delicious.

After the mains they brought out the pre-dessert which was sea buckthrorne curd with lemon verbena meringue, mandarin granita and lemon leaf ice cream.

The desserts we chose off the A la carte menu, as the set menu desserts were not catching our eye. I ordered the mango mille fuille with kaffir lime ice cream and James the passion fruit souffle with sauternes ice cream. The chef also sent us a third dessert to try, a brown sugar tart with ginger ice cream and sour caramel sauce. We also tried a couple of dessert wines, very sweet but delicious. I thought I was going to explode at this stage, but rest assured we cleared the plates, it was too nice to let anything go to waste.

They offered us petite fours at the end of the meal, but we were just too full, so they kindly boxed them up for us to take with us. The meal as a whole was fantastic, I would highly recommend a visit. The set menu means you can have a reasonably priced meal in one of the best restaurants in London (officially 14th best restaurant in the world), the wine list is extensive and this is where it can get expensive if you chose to indulge. The experience is worth every penny for a special occasion.