Reviews Portland Restaurant

When I was a kid, I quickly learnt that storming off in a tantrum rarely seemed to help me.  Screaming, shouting and trying to embarrass the parents would get me precisely nowhere.  In fact, it would be counterproductive as I would then be subject to punishment of the psychological kind.  Even in my young and innocent years, it was clear that I loved food.  A foreshadowing of the snob that I was to grow up to be.  Retribution would not be by starvation but just lack of taste.  If I behaved badly, gruel would be on the menu until I learnt to behave.

Located in Fitzrovia on a street bearing the same name, Portland manages to stand out among a plethora of restaurants making up London's vibrant modern European dining scene. The dishes seemed to display positively paradoxical qualities, each exhibiting a flavour and texture profile that was experimental yet familiar, honest yet complex - the snacks were particularly impressive. The michelin star awarded to the restaurant within eight months of its opening is clearly deserved. Furthermore, the meticulous presentation of the dishes is reflected in the restaurant's minimal interior evident by the mid-century chairs, the carefully placed artworks and the geometric panelled ceiling. Portland is sure to please those in search of perfectly executed cuisine without the baggage of pretension.

I've been dying to try Portland Restaurant since it opened months ago. Not just because critics and friends were raving about it, but also because the concept seemed very fun. Small menu, affordable and in a modern, casual setting. They change the menu often and we had some fantastic nibbles such as their pig's head croquettes....tasty!

A friend of mine recommended Portland Restaurant to me – it wasn’t really a “shall I try it?”, it was more of a “when could I fit it into my schedule?”. So by chance I managed to squeeze it in as a last minute meet up with a friend before I set off on my summer travels. Luckily for us they had a table available for dinner on a Saturday evening, so the usual… two excited girls out for a meal that would probably last the usual four hours!

I once read that Giles Coren disagrees with serving bread before a meal. I don’t have a Times subscription so can’t read his review of Portland but I imagine he retracted that comment after trying Portland’s warm crusty bread served with ox heart butter. I didn’t know what to expect but suffice to say it will now be difficult, albeit more practical, to go back to butter that hasn’t been adorned with shavings of ox heart.

I got an artichoke as a gift last week at a wine event. Few things prepared me for how charmed I would feel by it, but life in London is full of lovely little surprises like that. And its always a surprise to walk into fun evenings like Square Meal‘s dinner to discover Loire Valley Wines at Portland Restaurant. (More on the artichoke later.) It has been over ten years since I visited the Loire Valley, but my memory conjures up images of elegant stone castles, refined gardens and crisp country air. We traveled in the footsteps of Francois I (as you do in the Valley, for the French king was essentially as influential as Henry VIII in terms of putting his mark on French castles) and took in the vistas, eating our way as we went. Those were (sadly) the days before I really paid attention to wine, so I was looking forward to a bit of French fresh air in the way of a wine tasting as I walked into the smart looking Portland restaurant – halfway between Oxford Street and Great Portland Street. What I was not prepared for were the number of wine glasses… 6 per person to accompany the courses we would sample.Course 1: Bread & Domaine Bellevue Touraine Sauvignon I am already misleading you in my review here. Obviously bread was not a course. But I would like to suggest that it should be. If I miss one thing from living in France, it is the bread. And while Portland isn’t a French restaurant, it felt fitting that pilllow-y bread with a descent crust should be served at a wine evening. Wine wise, we started off with what was supposed to be the star of the region: the Touraine Sauvignon (this one from Domaine Bellevue). Some say that Touraine is an affordable alternative to Sancerre (that glorious white wine I would happily drink everyday but can only afford on special occasions) and I can see why the comparison is made. Its crisp and fresh – it would pair well with a light salad or grilled chicken and vegetables. (They tell me it would also pair well with shellfish but I am strictly a crustacean girl.) We drank it as an aperitif and if I’d realized how much was coming at us, I would have tried some again later on with food. As it was, my hungry palette fresh out of the office found it refreshing, but it did not jump out at me the way it probably would have if I’d tried it with food.Course 2: Pickled Shitake mushrooms, soy and ginger & Domaine de L’Aumônier, Touraine Sauvignon I am an infrequent fungi eater. There is no explanation for it besides the fact that I just seem to forget about them for which I owe them an apology. This was a striking combination and felt a bit experimental in its flavors. I actually found that the white wine served along side made my mouth pucker and preferred the wine served with the third course, a rosé, with this dish rather than the white.Course 3: Mangalitsa pig rillettes, pickles and toast & Rosé d’Anjou Domaine des Essarts Disclosure: I had to google what a Mangalitsa pig was. I learned it is a Hungarian breed of domestic big known for its fattier meat content.  This rillette (essentially a meat patte), spread thinly on toast and paired with gingered pickles, was delicious. The sweet rosé cut right through the fat and I really enjoyed this dish. It felt seasonal and prepared with care. It isn’t a course I would naturally order so it stood out for me.  You can tell when a lot of thought has gone into the flavors of a dish  – this was one of them and I loved the pairing.Course 4: Summer vegetable salad This delightfully simple summer vegetable salad was, funnily enough, controversial. Some of us adored it and others were a little underwhelmed as it was already drenched in dressing. I was camp “pro-salad” but I am a a) huge sucker for presentation and b) the light combination of beans, samphire and flower petals was beautiful and felt packed full of vitamins. We pause here for a minute to talk about my love for samphire – such a British ingredient which I’d never tasted in Belgium or France. A member of the parsley family, it grows on the coast and is deliciously earthy and salty so you will often see it served with fish. But beware, there are two kinds of samphire – the commonly used marsh samphire and the much more potent rock samphire… So English are they that they are even mentioned in Shakespeare’s King Lear. The only trouble with being distracted by presentation is that I did not focus on a wine pairing for the salad. I was too busy being happy over eating flower petals. #truthCourse 5: Grilled English asparagus with garlic yoghurt & Rosé d’Anjou Those who didn’t adore the salad loved the grilled English asparagus with garlic yoghurt. This came a little more wilted than I would have preferred but the sauce was delicious. As one of our lovely hosts mentioned, it was like picturing the best kebab you’ve ever eaten and the sauce that goes along with that. That might sound trite but it really shouldn’t – as the French would say: sometimes its all about the sauce.This is when the Rosé d’Anjou caught my attention. If you read about it, you’ll find a description that it is like “summer in a glass” and I found that really fitting. You can’t really tell from this photo, but the color is extremely light – like, tinted rain drop light – and I think that’s why its taste stood out for me to the extent it did. It was kind of like drinking a fresh strawberry but not in an overly sweet way. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.Course 6: Charred vegetables, smoked hollandaise, summer truffle I stayed with the Rosé d’Anjou for this incredible dish. Its pairing with the food here was on point. The dish was so rich that the wine calmed it down. I am (prepare yourselves, brunchers) actually not the biggest consumer of Eggs Benedict. The richness of hollandaise can get to me very quickly. But this dish – albeit in a small quantity – was GOOD. The buttery Hollandaise contrasted nicely with the almost burnt vegetables and the earthiness of the root vegetables and truffle really grounded it all. Back to the rosé, I’d be curious to try it again on its own – apart from food – as an aperitif. (As I write this, I’m glancing at pictures of the Ralph Lauren Wimbledon party and I’m thinking… yeah, wandering around with a glass of this, dressed in white, to watch a match? Not bad…) Side note: can you even drink at Wimbledon? English, please feel free to school this American… Course 7: The mother of all courses – Old spot pig belly, Roast Cornish monkfish with cider sauce, Potato millefeuille, and fine beans and yellow courgettes & Red Touraine Les Marcottes Domaine de Pierre The summery wine reverie was quickly overshadowed by the big guns. I’m a girl who is particularly fond of New World wines that take over your mouth like a gorgeous Pinotage from Stellenbosch in South Africa or a Shiraz from the Barossa Valley in Australia. I find them reliable – maybe because I find it easier to identify the bigger tastes than the subtle ones of a more refined French wine. But that’s more than half the fun of a tasting. I’m learning. The next wine we tried was a Touraine Les Marcottes Domaine de Pierre – a glass of red – which I loved. Wine from the Touraine (AOC), a diverse region which lies at the heart of the Loire Valley, can be white, rose, red or sparkling because you’ll find a lot of grapes varieties there: White: Sauvignon Blanc (almost 80%), Chenin Blanc. Red: Gamay (more than 60%), Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. The red has a little bit of power behind it and was spicy and full of red fruit flavors that I really enjoyed. We quickly discovered why they’d broken out the red.I don’t think anyone was prepared for how much food came next. The atmosphere in the room changed and we suddenly felt like we were gathered around a big family table which was lovely. The main attractions here, the pig belly and monkfish actually did not completely win me over, but their accompaniments were fantastic. I loved the beans and yellow courgettes – highlighted by what might have been a dash or oregano (?) that reminded me of home. And everyone was raving about the potato millefeuille – or, as my neighbor dubbed them – the “super chip”. Pretty sure everyone had seconds of those. The following picture has to be shown for posterity – this is what happens when huge dishes of food are presented to bloggers.Course 8: Almond Pithivier and Raspberry Jam & Rosé d’Anjou, La Jaglerie We ended on a high note – albeit at around 11 pm – with a wonderful dessert. I found the wine pairing here a little odd and went back to my Rosé d’Anjou from earlier. I needed some strawberry sweetness to complement the almond. Jars of whipped cream and raspberry jam were constantly in rotation and faces around the table petered gently on the edge of full-on food comas… it was nearing time to roll ourselves home.

So if you know me well, or spotted me with a wine funnel down my throat or face planted on a kerb somewhere in Soho – you’ll know my day job is working in wine. I got in to the wine industry about eight years ago now after a redundancy and decided a change from accounting was in order. I got a Sunday job at my local Wine Rack (which went into administration) while I searched for work, but then something miraculous happened – I fell in love with wine and studied it for five years. Admittedly I didn’t even like wine back then, except the sickly sweet Blossom Hill White Zinfandel (a wine I now despise). So when I got an email from the lovely guys over at Square Meal there was absolutely no way I was going to miss out on a fabulous sounding Loire Valley Wines dinner over at Portland in Fitzrovia.

Had a great meal here. First of all we all broke our pre-wedding no carb rule and devoured the bread with hay-smoked butter... Worth it. Then we had dairy cow tartare with beetroot. Very good. Scallop sashimi with buttermilk... Light and refreshing. Pigs head croquette was exceptional. For mains we shared the chargrilled courgette with yogurt, 120 day old chicken breast which was very good (never order chicken as too easy to make at home but this was special) and the dairy cow rib cooked at medium rare. At £65 for the dairy cow I was expecting a "kitty fisher's" like vibe but it was unfortunately quite tough and chewy (sinewy). I mentioned this to our very good waiter (Aussie bloke) and he offered to bring us another cut but we declined as quite full. That was a bit of a bummer but other than that enjoyed the meal very much. The burnt butter icecream we split with pear was very unusual and yum. I would go back for sure. Very attentive service. Was £65 a head with a bottle of Aussie Shiraz and a beer.

Last week I was fortunate to receive an invite from Square Meal to attend a wine tasting dinner at Portland restaurant in association with Loire Valley Wines. Street Vin’s Ruth Spivey and the Square Meal team paired up to host the evening, which was a huge success, drinkathon & feast.

Portland opened in January and is now one of London’s hottest restaurants, getting a 10/10 from Giles Coren in The Times and 5 stars from Time Out; Marina O’Loughin of the Guardian is “smitten” with the place and on my visit AA Gill was eating at an adjacent table. It has been set up by Daniel Morgenthau (previously of 10 Greek Street) and Will Lander. Lander has good pedigree – he founded the Quality Chop House and is the son of the FT’s restaurant critic Nicolas Lander. The head chef is the impressively named Merlin Labron-Johnson who moved to Portland after two years as sous chef at a funky Belgian Michelin starred restaurant called In de Wulf. The restaurant is in a long, thin room topped by an open kitchen and adorned with minimal artwork and furnishings – it has lots of hard surfaces so is a bit noisy (but not in an intrusive way). They offer the same a la carte menu (4 choices for each course) at both lunch and dinner, and pricing is very reasonable given the quality of Labron-Johnson’s cooking, with starters at £6-11 and mains up to £20.

Portland has all the ingredients to become a great success, all the 3 main dishes I tried on the day was top notch, the kitchen clearly has skills and given time to adapt to all the feedbacks, I really can see Portland becoming one of the hottest restaurants in London in 2015.

What an absolute treat! We had the very reasonably priced weekday prix fixe lunch menu and were completely blown away. The dishes were delicious, perfectly executed, and feasts for the eyes. The service was casual but extremely attentive - our server gave us great recommendations when ordering and brought us more bread when she noticed how much we enjoyed it. Love this place and we will be back for more!

We went with my wife, her sister and my brother (plus their respective couples) to the private dinning room. We had the tasting menu which was good but not impressive for a michelin restaurant. Ingredients were super fresh but dishes lacked of the "wow" factor. Service was great with a dedicated waitress in the room. Atmosphere was great, relaxed and cozy. Would recommend as it still a good value for money.

Had my birthday dinner with an old friend. Received a birthday card signed by all the staff，soo sweet！ The dishes were all very delicious from amuse bouche to dessert. The portion of food is just right，neither too full nor too small，the service is warm ，professional as well as efficient. The plating is neutral with a touch of design. The dining environment is cosy and relaxing. It is a good place to go after work. Would definitely come back sometime.

Portland Restaurant delivered an unforgettable dining experience for my husband's birthday celebration. We opted for the 3-course menu & a couple of nibbles. Each dish we tasted was a culinary masterpiece, bursting with flavor and beautifully presented. The lobster starter and mango dessert were absolute highlights. Exceptional food, excellent service, and great value - a must-visit for a top-notch dining experience!

Visited with my partner on Friday evening as we had read the reviews online and wanted to try with us visiting London for the first time. We decided to go for the taster menu with the wine pairing. The food was delicious, every single dish we had was incredible. The staff were very knowledgable. The service was great, we were taken care of so well whilst we were there. Couldn't fault it at all we absolutely loved it!

This place never disappoints! When you want something nice but not specifically French or Italian, this is the perfect balance. Is it British? I’m not sure but it’s good anyway. They change it up so you get a surprise every time.

Incredible food and amazing service, the smoked trout was unbelievable. Truly an unforgettable experience! The wine pairings were also excellent and the service was very good. I was equally impressed by the cocktails, the mezcal paloma was delightful.

Consistently one of the best restaurants in London. Opened in 2015 and quickly earned their well deserved Michelin star. Serving modern seasonal British cuisine. I've been a number of times over the last 7 years and the standard of cooking and service has always been memorable. The lunch menu of 3 courses for £45 is excellent value and make sure you order a few snacks as well to start off with.

Top quality fine dining in Central. Its plus points (beyond cooking to perfection), are its intimate, unpretentious setting, and that it's not unreachably pricey despite its location and quality. I love it, and it's still (!)) good after many years.