Zurbaran appeared to be showing a slow and sleepy service—I felt like saying, “Wake up everyone!” We had an hour or so to kill and this was within reach, so we walked in for a quick lunch. This might be the shortest story ever, as I only ordered a main course, with a dessert squeezed in for good measure.
I chose the octopus, which had a crisp edge and was soft in the centre—all good there. However, it was surrounded by a lot of pearl barley—too much, to the point where I would have preferred less barley and more octopus. The poor thing looked lost in a sea of grains. It’s always like this, isn’t it? The restaurant tries to fob you off with less of the main event and more of the item you don’t necessarily want, marking it up nicely. That said, the dish was flavoursome, and the barley was cooked with bite.
My guest said good things about the tuna, and, not normally being excited about lentils, found the dish packed with flavour and accompanied by decent cookery. The less impressive part was the dessert. I took a couple of spoonfuls then lost interest. I don’t like to eat something just for the sake of it. I found it to be very cream focused with too many soft textures; the tuille biscuit on top couldn’t carry it all. A piping bag alone isn’t going to create a whole dessert, and a couple of edible flowers won’t bring much. Back to the drawing board for the pastry—this reminded me of when I was in training, learning how to pipe pastry cream and meringues (nothing wrong with that!). However, it felt extremely basic, and the taste didn’t excite me.
The food was acceptable for what it was, and you won’t leave annoyed or starving—ready to tackle the rest of your day! But this was all that was offered and I wouldn’t go out of my way to come back again.
