Archives for posts with tag: Michelin

4 stars
Gilbert Scott is 2 Michelin starred chef Marcus Wareing’s second restaurant. Situated in the newly renovated St Pancras Hotel, which was originally opened by Queen Victoria in 1873, the restaurant is named in honour of the building’s original architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott.

He apparently designed the hotel just before the internal plumbing system was invented. Not long after the hotel was opened, it was deserted by guests as people preferred not to share toilets. It was then left unoccupied and gradually deteriorated for over 70 years.

I am glad to see that there is now modern plumbing at the restaurant. The dining area has been beautifully restored and is filled with great historic features. The huge windows drew a lot of natural light into the double height space. It is grand and charming.

Like Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, Gilbert Scott is set to celebrate British cooking. Though unlike Heston who spent a long time exploring old traditional British recipes, Marcus focuses on British regional culinary history and stays closer to the original recipes. Its website claims that they are ‘subtly modernising traditional dishes to unusual effect’. Did it live up to its claims? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags Grand Stairs, London, Marcus Wareing, Michelin, review, Spice Girls, St Pancras, the Gilbert Scott

Categories Food & Drink, my good book

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon- great value set menu

By gchong2426

March 18, 2011 //

4 stars
When going through my list of restaurants, I (Winkypedia’s Cheap Eat Expert, Gerald) realised that I’ve eaten in 3 starred and 1 starred Michelin restaurants, but never in a 2 star. This had to be rectified. So this trip was less to do with food, but more with an obsessive compulsive desire to experience the spectrum of reviews. After a little research on the net, I decided to go to L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon.

Why that particular restaurant? Well it was the cheapest 2 starred Michelin restaurant I could find in London. Simple as that. I’d heard good and bad things about Robuchon’s restaurants. I have a relative who is boycotting them, due to them raising the prices in his Tokyo restaurant to reflect the weakness of the Japanese yen, but then failing to lower the price again once the yen appreciated.

They currently have a menu du jour offering, where you can have a 2 course meal for £22, or a 3 course meal for £27, or you could order from their regular menu. Given the current economic climate, naturally I plumped for the menu du jour.

I keep a running score in my head of how much my michelin starred meals cost. e.g. my meal at the Fat Duck, worked out at £180 for the meal, so about £60 per star, per person; Galvin @ Windows came in around £100 per star, and One Dim Sum (in Hong Kong) came in at a legendary £4 per star. So potentially I could have a meal, that would come in at just over £11 per star. This would have to be the best value meal in the UK!

We booked dinner for 12.30 on Sunday. On arrival we were warmly greeted, and taken to our seats at the bar. It is a curious concept, French dining but with Japanese style lay out and service. In the same way a sushi chef would pass things over to you as you sit at the counter, here the staff pass the dishes over to you as they are prepared infront of your eyes only a few feet away. Continue reading about the great value set meu at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon >>

Tags French, Japanese, L’Atelier, London, Michelin, review, Robuchon, Staub

Categories Food & Drink, my good book

Cheapest (and best value) Michelin starred restaurant in the World?

By winkypedia

February 26, 2011 //

Yauatcha, Kai and Hakkasan are the three Chinese restaurants which currently hold 1 Michelin star in London. They are in my good book, however, they are no way as charming (and cheap!) as One Dim Sum 一點心- a tiny little dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong, which recently received a Michelin star in Hong Kong & Macau’s Michelin guide.

Photo above shows the shop front of One Dim Sum- The bright red Michelin sticker is dwarfed by laminated signs in Chinese stating the that the toilet is for the use of customers only and that they are recruiting waiters. (!) Possibly the only restaurant in the world where they draw more attention to toilet usage than the Michelin star award. Hmm, it shows an interesting sense of priority.

What truly is astonishing was the value. A meal for 3 people, that left us all more than comfortably full, for HK$160 (£12.60)! That was under £4.20 per head for a meal!!

Proudly on display was also a laminated colour photocopy of an interview with a Japanese magazine about their signature dish- Chinese rice cannelloni 布拉腸, which was prepared the traditional way, ie. by hand pulling with plain cloth. Continue reading to see what food you can eat at this Michelin starred restasuruant >>