Having saw Adam many times on the Great British Menu I was always wondering what his restaurant would be like. He comes across as self assured and noticeably confident in his cookery. We arrived before 10pm so we had a drink downstairs in the Eve Bar. I chose a rhubarb and custard cocktail. It was overly sweet, and I couldn’t taste the rhubarb that much. In some ways it did reflect the British childhood sweet Rhubarb and custard, it just would have been nice to taste more tart rhubarb. My guest had smoke and honey. The picture was misleading, we thought it would look like this, but it didn’t. As a bourbon and self-proclaimed old-fashioned obsessive, he didn’t like it. He went for the old fashioned instead but unfortunately, he found it too sweet and diluted. All in the name of personal preference…
Our table was not ready, and we were late going into dinner. At this point I was hungry and ready to tackle the tasting menu. As we entered the dining room it was lively and busy even at 10.20pm, which was rare for a Michelin star restaurant in London. The dining room was connected to an open kitchen with a small counter and then the tables behind it. Overall, it looked attractive, and we were thankful to be sitting down finally. We chose our wine before coming and brought it from our own collection. Matching it with the food before we came, but to our horror the menu wasn’t the same. This was a slight problem when you have already chosen the best match for your meal and find that it won’t be working with the lamb or Wagyu… Now it meant ordering more wine on top. (Which was not the idea). I know the menu online is a sample and things can change but there are people out there like us who are considering every detail, especially when not taking wine directly in the restaurant.
There was some stunning food on this menu and a couple of the snacks at the start were strong. Then further down the menu: Scottish waters, smoked chilli, and citrus. One of the most interesting scallop combinations I have eaten in a while, and I was expecting nothing less from Adam’s Scottish heritage. Smokey, with a big tang of citrus, heat from the chilli but cleverly mellowed out whereby the taste of that sweet scallop still shone through. I mixed a little bit of everything together and ate with the scallop. Texture, flavour, mouth feel. It all made for a triumphant dish. Never take this off the menu. Bravo.
Cod, beans, horseradish. A very very accomplished dish, verging on two Michelin stars. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. I enjoyed reaching into the bottom of the dish to find the beans and mixing everything together with the beautifully cooked cod. With the surprise of the textures underneath bringing it perfectly and magically together. I kept going back for more. One of the highlights on this menu.
For the rest I can only describe it as being on a rollercoaster. One minute you are up the next you are coming down. It was not the level of consistency we could have expected, from one dish to another. There was some fluctuation in the inspiration.
Supplements- Upselling is not my favourite thing, but we tried the caviar supplement because why not? but for me it just didn’t work, and the choice of caviar tasted weak. It was n25 Umai caviar, doused on a waffle and lost within the flavour of sturgeon cream (The sturgeon didn’t come through) Add birch syrup into the mix and you are never coming out alive.
One supplement that did rock my world was the cheese course: Eastwood, cherry Bakewell, and honey. Meant to be eaten with your hands and towels provided afterwards. (Ok that is going too far for me, so I asked for cutlery) The Cherry Bakewell I remember eating as a child was out of a packet of Mr Kipling. Sitting here evoked comforting childhood memories. At Frog it is created to hold on top a generous portion of Eastwood cheese, topped with truffle honey. The combination was refreshing and totally working. It even managed to convince my French guest who religiously only eats cheese alone with bread. The French way. This was a huge compliment.
Dessert is always my favourite part of the tasting menu. But the dishes were not any different to anything we have seen before. They certainly were not new or surprising and felt a little bit dated. But the execution was fine. I felt that the ‘rhubarb and custard’ could have been taken to a whole new level with a more extensive use of the rhubarb. Pushing the boat out, as rhubarb is a superb ingredient. I ended with a dessert wine, my one beloved glass of Chateau d’yquem at the end was treated with disrespect having been poured the stingiest amount I have ever seen. (Poured into two glasses!) And it looked like it had come from right at the end of the bottle too. Never had I been served it like this before. That was a first.
Overall, though, we had a good night with a couple of very outstanding dishes. With a gap in consistency from a culinary standpoint from dish to dish, it did feel haphazard. That isn’t to say that Frog isn’t a good restaurant, it just needs more work to bring every dish to the same elevated level as the others. We are always learning and improving ourselves, and this is what Frog should continue to do.
