Mrs P: we're going out with my brother on Saturday. I need you to book a restaurant.
Me: umm OK. Any more details?
Mrs P: I need you to book a restaurant.
Me: right, I've done it. How do you fancy...
Mrs P: not that one.
So, as you can imagine, I was stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. Fortunately, I had a secret weapon up my sleeve; the Timeout top 50. Unfortunately, they were all booked. Literally, all of them.
From what I read, the Greenman and French Horn is owned by a chef who also owns an entry in the aforementioned top 50 and I'm sure a fully paid up member of the tosseratti could tell you who that was. Well, if you want to know then you can bloody well look it up yourself.
On to the Food Porn!!
The menu was modern French Brazzerie style and I started with brown shrimp with celery. Mmm, it was lovely, I've had brown shrimp in France before but there the little buggers come shells, head and all. Here, after being 'chefed', they were still lovely and buttery. The celery had been lightly poached and the cheesey topping was nice and light but didn't take away from the small shrimp shaped stars.
Main was clams. Big, juicy, clams. Big, juicy, slippery, I should stop now. Needless to say, they really were delicious. Butter, wine, bacon and natural ozone made the sauce unmissable, however, what certainly was missed was a great hunk of bread. An almost criminal omission.
Mrs P had mussels, which were tasty but missed out on my slightly obsessive food photography habit. What was caught was my sister-in-law's partridge, claw and all. That was also pretty good, the step mushrooms were nice and earthy and I did push the interpersonal boundaries by inviting myself to her plate more than once, but that's allowed right? Right? In fact, the four of us couldn't find anything much wrong with the menu as a whole. Perhaps it was a little poncy but you can't blame them for that, posh Brazzerie is a concept that certainly has it's place.
My only gripe is that the wine menu is entirely and exclusively French. While I vaguely know my arse from my elbow when it comes to a bottle of vino, this list stumped me and when I asked the waiter for advice, what followed didn't fill me with confidence as he flicked through the pages to seemingly pick something at random. The end result was pleasant enough but I couldn't help but feel we could have done better.
£43 per person with three courses for four including drinks is pretty bloody good for just off Leicester Square. We were all well fed and had (almost) no complaint. This one is certainly going on the list for future return visits.
www.greenmanfrenchhorn.co
