Reviews Blue Print Cafe

If you are booking, request a window table.  A little hard to find being two flights upstairs but that just improves the view of the Thames.  The acoustics are not great and the window tables also have the advantage of being quieter.  It was funny to glimpse Mini Patel in the kitchen, having seen him on TV, cooking on Great British Menu.  Like Frog in East London, dishes are brought by cooks from the kitchen.  Useful if you have questions about the dishes but less handy if you just want to ask for more water.

We arrived very hungry so ordered the red pepper and walnut dip with crisp bread, knowing that a pre-prepared dish would appear quickly.  We were not that impressed be the design of this dish.  It contained cumin and quite a lot of smoked paprika so the freshness of the roasted red peppers was lost.  Also the sour dough melba toast was drenched in olive oil.  Tasty actually, but quite messy to eat.  I would have preferred a dip that was flavored more like a romesco than a muhumarra, with some acidity and the freshness of parsley.  I did appreciate it being served at room temperature rather than fridge cold.

Mains on the other hand were excellent.  My companion's lamb pie was very pretty, very meaty and with little fat.  It came with a salad dressed in a nutty vinaigrette and deep fried lamb chunks.  A quenelle of wild garliic pesto was a great compliment.  The lamb jus was intriguiging with a tiny hint of aniseed in the background.  I had a very well trimmed and well sourced ribeye steak.  It was trimmed so well that even served rare I only needed to trim off one vein of fat running through the centre.  The accompanying oxtail and bone marrow sauce was rich and had been sweetened with port.

We had two sides.  The roast hispi cabbage with crisp shards of prosciutto and a light coating of cheese and mustard sauce was brilliant.  Some of the best cabbage I have eaten.  Fries were not great, being a little soft and greasy rather than crisp.  Fried at too low a temperature.  However the accompanying hollandaise was quite masterful being more acidic than usual, which made a good foil for fries.  In fact, all of the sauces were masterful.  On a second visit I would order their organic sourdough instead of fries for mopping up the delicious sauces.

With a pleasant house red of Sicilian Nero D'Avola for a reasonable £21, our bill would have been £83 at full price including service and a 1% charitable donation.  They are soft launching the new menu until Saturday April 28, 2018 with food discounted at 50%.  Go to the Offers section of the Hot Dinners website for instructions on how to get the discount.

When the sun is out, a table at Blueprint Café overlooking the Thames is a glorious spot to enjoy a meal. And it’s been my experience that the café’s Head Chef Martyn Moody’s meals are definitely enjoyable. His new Saturday brunch menu is a guaranteed weekend delight. As for the weather, there are no guarantees, but the crisp blue skied Saturday I paid a visit was gorgeous.

Overlooks Thames - standard fare

We loved the trendy but unpretentious feel, the restaurant was buzzing and full of good energy.

Last Sunday had some pretty peculiar weather. It was such a sunny and hot day more akin to a summer when we are smack dab in the middle of autumn. With all the sunshine and clear blue skies it would have been a crime if we didn’t get out to enjoy it. Oh d

Food: British

Price: Around £50 for two people

Atmosphere: Elegant, Secret

Great place for lunch or dinner in front of the Thames . In fact, the restaurant is located right next to the museum design and offers tasty British cuisine . The restaurant is very bright and makes you feel that you are at one step from the river.

The service is great and the servers will offer you two options for your lunch: a menu "A la carte" and the menu of the day, which is a bit cheaper.

We had salmon for the starter  and the chicken yellow ross for the main and it was a nice treat. The portions were a little bit small but very good.

There was no waiting for the service, which is a big plus for a restaurant with great assets.

The Design Museum has a first floor restaurant called the Blueprint Café with a fine view over the Thames, including Tower Bridge, and has long had a reputation for good food (it opened in 1992). Some restaurants with a view compensate with either underwhelming food or high prices, but the British food at the Blueprint café was modestly priced, with a set lunch at £20 for three courses. From the a la carte, starters were £6.50 to £9, main courses £12.50 to £21.50, and desserts £5.50 to £8. Mark Jarvis is now the head chef, having taken over from Jeremy Lee, who moved to Quo Vadis. Mark was sous chef at Texture prior to this head chef assignment.

The wine list was organised by style and had selections such as Elderton Shiraz 2009 at £38 for a wine that you can find in a shop for about £20, Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc 2011 at £49 for a wine that you can find in the high street for around £20, and Harmand Geoffroy Jouise 2008 Gevrey Chambertin at £85 for a wine that retails at about £31.

Bread is now made from scratch, and it shows. Sourdough rolls made with buttermilk were excellent, soft and with good flavour (15/20). It is really nice to see restaurants making their own bread rather than just lazily buying it in, especially when they do it well. A starter of kedgeree was pleasant, and although there are limits to how exciting this dish is ever likely to be, it was well made, the rice properly cooked, the seasoning accurate. Perhaps there could have been a bit more haddock, but it was nice enough (13/20).

Coley with chorizo, fennel and rocket salad and Romesco sauce was a nicely balanced dish. Coley, which in my youth was regarded as cat food rather than sort of fish that would appear at the dining table, is hard to make thrilling, but the salad was nicely judged, the hint of spice a good idea to lift the dish and give some much-needed flavour. The coley itself was accurately timed and properly seasoned (14/20).

Even better was chicken leg, char-grilled and served with curly kale, truffled pommes puree and a sauce of the cooking juices. Onions with the chicken were nicely sweet, the chicken carefully cooked, the potatoes having smooth texture, the kale having good texture (15/20).

Blood orange parfait was served with olive oil sponge and blood orange syrup. The parfait was not too cold and had reasonable flavour, and the sponge was unusual, very light, and was a good foil for the parfait, the acidity of the oranges balancing the olive oil flavour (14/20).

Service was very capable, friendly and efficient. The bill came to just £ 27 with the set lunch and water to drink, but of course it would be more in the evening with wine. I enjoyed this meal very much, and while D&D restaurants will limit the freedom the chef has with regards to ingredient quality at this price point, the kitchen made very good use of what was available. Cooking was accurate, dishes nicely balanced and well plated. If you want to eat in a room with a view then you should consider the Blueprint Café.

Worth the walk down from Pont de La Tour. Offering a much tighter menu and some much more interesting twists on the old classics. This is place is defiantly worth going for the lunch specials and the view over the water is brilliant! I have never been for dinner here though.

Food tastes much better than how it looks. Presentation is simple and almost borderline pub-like, but the marriage of all the different flavours was excellent all the way. Views are incredible too. This is much better than I expected, but service is woefully slow and feels as if the waiters are so stressed out by how they aren't able to cope with the orders.

I attended a supper club and Chef Patel, he & his crew treated us like royalty. We enjoyed the Beef & Beer evening. A collaboration with Small Beer Co. It was a great match (as you would expect). Chef Patel showed his flair & training with multiple mouthwatering dishes. The steak tartare was one of the best dishes I've ever had. Prime steak, finely diced, mingled with roast sunflower seed, a hint of kohlrabi, pickles and nasturtium leaf, set against a foil of sweet mustard on the side. Dishes were matched with different beers and beer cocktail the pairing knocked my socks off. The whole event ticked boxes I didn't know I had! I have to say sensational taste and value. Complex flavours delivered brilliantly.

Attentive service and nice to have the chef's come and greet us and ask how our meal was. Portion sizes could be bigger for a sharing plate experience with friends.

Excellent brunch menu on Sunday. Up to the usual standard. Nice and relaxed with view of the Thames.

Great views and good food, service was a little slow and seats a bit hard.

Very nice place with an extraordinary view to the bridge. For lunch it’s kind of quiet with a very casual service. Nice menu.

Very very affordable but still very tasty 😋 Amazing views as well