St. Alban (Mediterranean) – London, England (7/10)
Jul 28th, 2009 by admin
Background:
St. Alban has never been on my restaurant wishlist and after a recent dinner there, I now know the reason why. Although I love its sister restaurant The Wolseley, St. Alban is completely different in comparison. Whereas I’m excited and satisfied whenever I leave The Wolseley, I felt strangely deflated when I left St. Alban, and quite frankly bored. There’s nothing wrong with the place. The contemporary interior is nice and spacious, the ambience nice (again!) and the service polite and friendly. As at The Wolseley, a newspaper was brought to me while I waited for my friend to turn up, and St. Alban have the same white linen tablecloths and napkins. That’s where the similarity ends.
Menu:
The July menu can be viewed online, so I won’t go through it in detail here. It was hard to make my choices and I had to tweet my mains so that others could decide for me.
- quail, pancetta & dandelion salad (£10.75) – I have to compare this to the last quail salad I ordered at a restaurant – the Hereford Road quail, chard and aoili salad for £6. If you click on the link to the review, you’ll see my whole quail! At St. Alban, I was hard pressed to find more than a few small pieces of quail and the strong taste of the pancetta dominated the dish
- octopus ‘a la plancha’ with smoked paprika (£12.75) – this would have been my other starter choice. My friend was rather disappointed with it, as it consisted of about three large pieces of tentacle. The bite I tried however was tender and full of flavour
- charcoal grilled veal chop with wood roasted ratatouille (£26.75) – a gigantic veal chop arrived, and the piece I tried was nice and meaty with a little bit of seared fat. I’m not a fan of ratatouille though
- Cumbrian rump of lamb with sautéed girolles and pesto (£24.50) – the lamb was prepared the way I like it, medium-rare, and tender. I enjoyed the accompanying sautéed girolles but wasn’t convinced that pesto was the best ingredient to use
- vanilla & raspberry crème brûlée (£6.75) and lemon tart (£6.50) – these were perfectly decent puddings but I can barely remember anything about them
The verdict:
St. Alban is great for those who have an abundance of money to spend in restaurants and don’t mind that they’re being served good, but not very exciting, food in return. It’s not particularly noisy, so you can have a conversation with your fellow diners without needing to raise your voice, and the service is efficient. I was, however, disappointed that £50 per person, without alcohol, only bought me a good, but not superb or even excellent, meal and won’t be returning again unless someone else pays the bill. And even then, if I had the choice, I would suggest eating elsewhere. Perhaps I’ve become too critical when I eat out and should just sit back and enjoy myself once in a while. However, I’ve been going through a spate of rather boring and uninspiring meals this year and it’s hard not to feel a bit miffed to have to sit through yet another one, then hand over £50.
The pre- and post-theatre and Saturday lunch menu (2 courses at £17.50, 3 courses at £22.25) might be a better bet if you want to try St. Alban.
10 – Perfection, 9.5 – Sensational, 9 – Outstanding, 8.5 – Superb,
8 – Excellent, 7.5 – Very Good, 7 - Good, 6.5 - Above Average, 6 – Average
All the London restaurant reviews on World Foodie Guide
Contact details:
St. Alban
4-12 Lower Regent Street
London SW1Y 4PE
Tel: 020 7499 8558
www.stalban.net
Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide
I must say it does look pretty average for the prices they’re charging. Your dandelion salad probably veers into rip-off territory, wouldn’t you say?
3 tentacles?! Considering octopus isn’t a very expensive beast, that’s quite shocking.
The octopus dish does look a bit sad.
My favorite dish is the salad. I love the little eggs. It seems like an easy salad to replicate
Looks like this place is overpriced, yeah, echoing the comments here, a few pieces of octopus does seem rather uneventful. I still enjoy the wolseley breakfast though…… wish they let me take pictures in there!
I was also saddened by the stingy portion of octopus. Perhaps even cutting it up into smaller chunks would have helped with the presentation there.
Hi! I am a new reader on your food blog. Love it!
You’re right! Nothing looks interesting and for 50 pounds! That’s highway robbery!!
They should try harder.
Ollie – totally agree. In fact, I couldn’t find any dandelion in my salad. I’m sure that’s a bed of frisée lettuce!
Lizzie & pigpigscorner – they were tasty, but yes, three tentacles! Rather sad…
Jackie – yes, very easy to replicate. Hence my shock at the price.
kang – I’ve always been able to take photos at The Wolseley! I think your camera’s too big. I haven’t taken the Leica there yet, but my Sony Cybershot was so small, no one ever noticed!
Helen – you’re right, it might have helped!
Chee – hello & thanks for reading my blog! I feel sad re-reading my post and looking at the photos. £50 is a lot of money to pay for uninspiring food…
Helen Yuet Ling
Wow, I found a great food blog here.
yeah i totally comprehend your friend. tentacles are a major turnoff
You should definitely submit some of your photos to http://www.donteatthatyet.com. Their goal is to create a visual restaurant review site with a template similar to that of tastespotting.
Hi Helen, when I eat at St. Alban’s, it’s always for their lunch menu (15.50 for two courses the last time I was there). At that price, I think it’s a fab lunch option when near Piccadilly. Everything is, as you say, “nice.”
KennyT – thanks Kenny!
jess – thanks for the link, it sounds interesting and I’ll check it out! I haven’t submitted food photos to any of those sites yet…
An American in London – I think you’re right. For that price, I’d be happy with ‘nice’. For £50, I wasn’t happy!
Helen Yuet Ling
Feels good to have your original hunch validated, I bet, except at the painful extraction from the pocketbook.
the octopus presentation does look sad if that was the way it came out, my first impression of the picture was that you took the photo after some eater could not wait, it seems incredibly brazen to charge that amount for a portion like that and not be something mindblowingly good.
OysterCulture – I think I should have gone for the set menu, which never hurts quite as much if the food turns out to be so-so! Still quite sad about it all. I wouldn’t have minded paying for it had it been excellent, exciting food, but the dinner we had wasn’t that at all…