london eats

     

Megan and I visited Lucy in London again last weekend, for Lucy's birthday. If there's any question as to whether we ate a whole bunch of delicious things, you don't know me (or this blog) at all.

1-7. Ottolenghi, Belgravia: I'd been seeing Yotam Ottolenghi's name on food blogs for a while, and figured on good things at one of his four restaurants, but oh boy. This food was AMAZING. I got a lunch plate of four salads (£13.70) and all were phenomenal, particularly the green beans (front and center on the dark blue plate). I was glad to see that that recipe is also in Ottolenghi's cookbook, Plenty, with which I am obsessed. The Belgravia location only has one large table in the restaurant, but there was also an adorable bit of outdoor seating out back -- perfect for a surprisingly mild November day.

8-9. Chez Bruce, Wandsworth: Megan, Lucy, and I are beginning to collect Michelin-starred restaurants as we travel now, which sounds like a bad idea for the wallet (though as Michelin-starred restaurants go, Chez Bruce is hardly a bank-breaker: £45 for a three-course meal) and maybe also a bad idea for the stomach. We were so full after this dinner that the cab ride home was torture. (In the sense that we tortured the cab driver. We were fine, ourselves.) Megan left some chocolate on the table, uneaten, for the first time in her life. Worth it. We get why it's Lucy's favorite restaurant now.

10-11. Byron Hamburgers, Putney: Fresh, delicious ingredients for burgers that they actually cook rare upon request without looking at you like you have two heads? Oh Byron, be mine. Frankfurt's burger scene may have worn me down a little, but even apart from that Byron has great food: jacket-on potato wedges, crunchy, peppery coleslaw, homemade milkshakes, and all kinds of excellent burger options.

12-13. Bluebird, Chelsea: After multiple days of overeating terribly, a latte, a fresh-squeezed orange juice, and an order of eggs florentine were exactly what I needed in my life. I did not, however, need to know that the London Anthro is just down the street, nor that the shopping on the King's Road is all-over glorious.