Thursday 22 October 2015

Revolución de Cuba - Milton Keynes

I was recently invited to the newly opened Revolución de Cuba and while there were plenty of things that I liked; the décor, the atmosphere, the ridiculous drinks, the cheap 2 for 1 Sunday Tapas deal, the enormous bar, the even more enormous list of rums served from the enormous bar, the cocktail making masterclasses, the newspaper menus, the music and even our unfailingly enthusiastic waiter: Roy. Unfortunately for them, all of these factors were almost entirely negated by the embarrassing plates of food that came out of the kitchen, which is a rather difficult issue for a restaurant, I think you will agree.



However before we get into it, let’s just take a moment and talk about the thoughts behind this new addition to the Theatre District in Milton Keynes.  The website claims to be bringing ‘Cuban Soul’ to Milton Keynes and from what I can see, Cuban soul doesn’t come cheap because doing up this place clearly cost an absolute fortune. Dredged from ruins of the former club Buddha Blue and acting as the vanguard of the re-energisation of the area, the Revolución de Cuba has had more tarting up than Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry combined, which can only be a good thing. The Theatre District has long suffered from oozing footfall over to the Xscape building and the Hub, which has led to outlets coming and going with such quick turnaround at almost dizzying frequency.

But I’m afraid this much needed and very welcome investment only serves to confuse me even further because why spend all that money on everything else but leave out the food in such an obvious way? Now, I’ve never been to Cuba (although I would love to, just in case you were wondering), but I can’t help feeling that this menu is a confusing mash-up of Las Iguanas, Turtle Bay and La Tasca and contains very little of the soul they want to give to us, the punters. We started with a couple of cocktails; a Pornstar Rumtini (served impressively with half a passionfruit but also rather confusingly with a shot of flat prosecco) and Ruby Punch served in an elephant which tasted great - clearly their mixology was as well polished as the burnished top of that bar.



Now we must talk of the food; we started with Nachos, pork belly, chorizo and bread. But you can probably tell there are going to be issues. Firstly, it was all cold and particularly the rum sauce served as a condiment from our ever joyful Roy was practically frozen. But past that, the nachos were room temperature at best, the fat on the pork belly hadn’t been rendered so was chewy and unpleasant but while the chorizo was ok, the red wine sauce that it came with was practically just that. It hadn’t reduced or deepened in flavour in practically any way.


So the starters didn’t start so well, but we moved on with deepening apprehension to the main course. Winners and losers there too I’m afraid. Both paella and sea bass dishes were placed before us and before we really knew what had happened, we had tasted them. The Sea Bass was cooked with the rice all wrapped in a banana leaf, but my suspicions were somewhat aroused when I unwrapped the leaf and it started to crumble into dust, leaving me to believe that it had perhaps spent some time in a unnaturally hot environment.  This did not fill me with confidence with regards to it’s contents. However, I needn’t have worried about being disappointed because the worst was yet to come for beside this over-cooked fish slice (smeared with what the menu described as ‘marinade’ but what was in reality a lime paste flavoured with so much black pepper that it obliterated everything else in my mouth), was a ‘Cuban salad’. At this point we now know two things about Cuba when viewed through the eyes of Revolución de Cuba; one, everything looks amazing and two, they eat raw beans and lentils whilst pretending it’s a salad. But perhaps the paella was better right? True, it was citrusy, fresh and everything that I was expecting the salad to be. But it was also filled with bullet hard prawns, rubber chicken shavings and accompanied by a few watercress leaves which had been rescued from the leftovers of the previous day. 




By this point of the evening, with our expectations dashed cruelly and without mercy, I looked across the table at my dining companion in his tailored suit and immaculately lacquered hair, holding the ear of a ceramic elephant and drinking his cocktail through a straw and I started to wonder what were the life decisions I had made to put myself in this position?

But we pressed on with the determination of an endurance athlete nearing the finishing line and what followed surprised us all because not only were both the brownie and churros well executed and hot/cold as required, they were pretty damn tasty too. The churros were crunchy, sweet and great for dipping while the brownie was deep and chocolatey with enough gooeyness to satisfy all but the most militant of brownie enthusiasts.




So in summary, I’m afraid I don’t bring you a message of universal good news. The Revolución de Cuba is not a restaurant, it is a bar with a kitchen and like so many before it, it’s not managing both parts to the same standard. In fairness to the team there, I understand they recently lost their head chef without warning and so it’s horrendously unfortunate they were left out in the wind this close to opening and I feel deeply sorry for their situation. But the massively high expectation that customers have when they walk through the doors simply isn’t communicated through the confusing and poorly applied menu, which is a real shame. Would I come back? Sure, the tapas menu on a Sunday is a proper bargain, but at least now I’ll know what to expect.


We were the guests of Revolución de Cuba on this occasion but the opinions are very much my own.

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