Those two amuse courses and that missing cheese on toast aside, this was a really great meal, and House of Tides was a place we found it very easy to enjoy ourselves. The restaurant seemed more or less packed full of people, and of laughter and chatter. I was a bit blown away by some of the cooking. Tiny touches, like crunchy grains of fleur de sel for seasoning, and the immaculate technique in the veg prep, the jellies and the sauces resulted in some powerfully good food. Needless to say, all this ain't cheap - £65 per head for the tasting menu on a weekend, although you can have three of the above courses for £40 - and I wonder if they'll be inclined to do a lunch service with lower prices anytime soon. While spend per head is likely to be higher in here than at just about any other restaurant in town, the quality of the produce and the cooking shone through regularly enough for me to suggest that, for those into their food, it's worth it. There is an undoubted sense here that, with
Having finally returned to the Toon after cooking his way around the country, Kenny opened House of Tides in February 2014. Situated in an imposing 16th Century former merchant’s house on the banks of the Tyne, it’s a fitting location for a Geordie destination restaurant. We had pre-dinner drinks and appetisers in the downstairs bar, a gorgeously industrial room of stone, metal and leather. Hulking meaty olives and warm gougeres filled with sweet onion cream were a perfectly understated start to the meal. Choices made from the menu - at dinner there’s either a non-vegetarian (£65) or vegetarian (£65) tasting menu, a choice of meat courses and the option of a couple of extra courses – we migrated to the upstairs dining room. The first course was the standout of the night and perhaps my entire year.
Today’s catch: Scorched scallop with pumpkin and Parmesan – a beautiful autumnal dish that still had the lightness and vibrant colours of summer. What I liked about this dish was how the pumpkin meat had been included in its squishy natural state as well in the purée. The sweetness in the dish was balanced with acidity in the pickled squash, bitterness from the searing to the scallops as well as salt and umami from the Parmesan wafers.
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