Medlar

Chelsea's gem

Tagliatelle with cod cheeks, broad beans,
asparagus, pied bleu and wild garlic

Medlar, a modern bistro located in Chelsea has delighted locals as well as destination diners for a while now. It has been almost a year since Medlar lost its Michelin star, personally I think it never deserved such status in the first place. In my first visit two years ago, I had some very capable cooking and generally really enjoyed it, but it was far from exciting or refined and these are the qualities I would be expecting in a Michelin starred restaurant. But stars aside, it is a lovely restaurant, one that I would happily visit on a regular basis if I lived nearby.

Crab raviolo with samphire, brown shrimps,
 and bisque sauce

Magret of duck, pressed potato,
celeriac terrine, beetroot puree

Rare grilled ox heart with veal sweetbread,
white asparagus, pomme anna and confit onions

The restaurant's signature dish crab raviolo once again gave my taste buds a real delight, it had a good amount of sweet crab meat and the bisque sauce was finely balanced, not overly salty and blessed with plenty of seafood flavours.The tagliatelle with cod cheeks were also excellent, the pasta was really soft and smooth and the wild garlic gave the dish a lovely aroma and worked so well with the meaty cod cheeks. Rare grilled ox heart was a pretty special dish, that veal sweetbread alone won me over with the rich and powerful meaty flavours.The heart was more tender than I was expecting and the potato cake was well seasoned with a beautiful creamy after-taste. 

heavenly chess board

Banoffee tartlet with mascarpone financier

Overall it wasn't a great deal of difference compared to my last visit, as expected, some very classical western European flavours with a small modern touch, service was really friendly and charming too. Personally I think this is the best restaurant in the Chelsea neighbourhood for under £100 per person, I took the Monday offer advantage to get 20% off on my entire bill, I would say it was money well spent (£50) for this kind of quality cooking. Not to mention they have an excellent cheese board with some very special cheeses that are a must to try for any serious cheese lover.


Food 3.5/5

Executive chef: 
Joe Mercer Nairne

What I paid: 
£50pp 

Average cost without drinks and services:
£28 lunch menu
£46 dinner menu

438 King's Road, Chelsea, London SW10 0LJ

http://www.medlarrestaurant.co.uk/