Posh Food

What about Pollen St Social? I know it's got a private dining room as does Dinner by Heston

Any use?

Went to the private dining room at Pollen Street Social last night, had the tasting menu - it was one of the singularly most appalling restaurant experiences I have ever had.

The meal started with Oyster Ice Cream - Basically Oyster Juice churned with Ice Cream. It tasted rank. All twelve diners thought it was rank - a stupid, revolting way to begin a meal.

We arrived, as instructed by 7.30, by 10.15 we had been served 3 miniscule portions (including 'our take on a Full English' - which is fuck all like a Full English). When I questioned the Manager about why it was taking so long, he told us it was because we took so long to order. An interesting observation, as we were having the set menu, and had pre-booked.

I have heard great things about Jason Atherton, I know a few of the Chefs who have worked with him over the years, so Pollen Street Social was a bitter disapointment. It's supposed to be 'all about the food', but the food wasn't that good - it was just a pointless procession of ill-thought out (but probably very well sourced ingredients), produced using as many 'cutting edge' techniques as the kitchen could throw in, with very little thought, love or cohesion. Horseradish snow - for fucks sake lads, grow up.

Another point, whoever was seasoning the food was obviously a heavy smoker, and I mean fucking heavy - haven't tasted food that salty since my old man gave up Woodbines.

The service, before the inevitable row, was crap. After the row they got their finger out and sorted it. Strikes me that since we had pre-booked at an agreed price, they reckoned they didn't have to bother, so didn't.

I think there were twelve of us there last night. We all work in the industry, we were there for a bit of a celebration - I cannot imagine any of us willingly going there again.

It was reminiscent of the early days of Sketch - piss poor and pointless.