Sometimes food provides not just great tastes, but also a great experience. Such is the reward if an evening at The Frog. You may have to save for a while to afford such a treat, but it will prove more than worth it. In a great atmosphere, within which we were made to feel special, we enjoyed

the rich variety and art of the taster menu, each course explained at the table for us by its chef. Truly memorable.

Food was amazing but service was poor.  There is front of house staff that takes orders and brings checks.  Food is brought to the table by the chefs.  Useful if you have questions  about preparation or ingredients but the kitchen staff don't offer a lot of commentary.  Front of house staff seem to have all had training in avoiding eye contact with customers.  It's nice nonetheless to have fine dining standard food in a casual establishment.  It's probably more comfortable to sit in the covered outside area unless you want to watch the chefs in action in the open kitchen.  The restaurant is not well ventilated so you can smell the deep fat fryer.

We ordered three starters from the Snacks section of the menu.  I would encourage people to order the bread and chicken butter.  The spongy spelt bread served us well for mopping up delicious sauces throughout the meal.  The chicken butter was strange but intriguing having been infused with chicken skin and topped with crumbled chicken crackling.  Doughnuts, cheese, truffle was good too.  Two small beignets filled with cheese sauce and sprinkled with massive amounts of grated cheese and a little shaved truffle.  There was also a little sprinkle of powdered blackened leek which added smokiness.  Our last snack was disappointingly dull and a tiny portion.  Potato,  aubergine, miso were two little rolls of crisp potato filled with aubergine puree flavored with miso.

The dish of cauliflower, kimchee, harissa was the first of our  bigger dishes from the British Tapas section of the menu to arrive.  I think even cauliflower haters would like this.  Florettes had been roasted to an aggressively brown level of toastiness.  These were draped with slices of homemade kimchi which were sweeter and milder than commercial varieties.  There were dots of harissa spiked mayo and onion puree on the plate.  Fantastic flavor.

Our orders of burnt beef, and lamb with mash arrived at the same time.  As the lamb dish was rich, we were advised to start with the beef.  I loved this.  I'd actually seen this dish cooked by Adam Handling on an episode of Saturday Kitchen.  Medium rare bavette steak had been seared at an extremely high temperature and was very flavorful as a result.  Chewy Jerusalem artichokes had been first roasted and then deep fried.  As garnish there was garlicky sour cream and pickled baby onion that had been charred with a blow torch.   A sprinkle of the charred leek powder was a finishing touch.  A beautiful combination of meatiness, earthiness, acidity, smokiness and pungency.

The lamb shoulder was meltingly soft and didn't need to be cut with a knife.  It was served with a sweetish ragout of minced lamb and tomato.  Accompaniments were creamy mash, lamb jus flavored with mint oil and burnt onion.  My companion, who loves comfort food, raved about this dish.  For my taste, I preferred the clean and zingy flavor of the steak.

We were too full to sample any of the spectacular looking desserts being delivered to other tables. 

The cheapest bottle of wine here is £30 so we opted for two glasses of house red at £6 and two bottles of South African pear cider for the same price.  The pear cider was very dry and not too bubbly, so perfect for pairing with food.  A better deal than the wine.  A very filling lunch for two, including service and the £24 we spent on drinks came to £87.  Very reasonable considering the staggering quality of the food.

We want to return to try the mac and cheese and some desserts.