No Expert …but I know what I like – Food Blog, Restaurant reviews
Reviews, Guides & Maps
The Magdelen has quite a pedigree. With links to some of the countries top Restaurants and Gastropubs. The reviews on its website are superb. On the whole we found it to be a friendly neighbourhood restaurant that provides good tasty food, but perhaps not meriting all the superlatives in the reviews.
I would certainly happily make a return visit.
Marks out of 10
Food 6
Service 6
Ambience 6 (although it was a bit drafty)
*******************************************************
and the INTERNATIONAL winner for BEST FOOD is
Comerç 24 – Barcelona
See posts:-
and the BRITISH winner for BEST FOOD is
The Kitchin – Edinburgh
See posts:-
*******************************************************
and a special award for SERVICES TO GASTRONOMY
Foliage – London
See posts:-
*******************************************************
and the winner for WORST FOOD is
See posts:-
*******************************************************
and the winner for MOST DISAPPOINTING FOOD is
Hibiscus – London
See post:-
*******************************************************
For information on the other awards, see
*******************************************************
Happy New Year 2010 from No Expert
No Expert published 120 posts last year, looking forward to providing more this year. There are just so many restaurants out there, click here to see our restaurant visit wish list.
Best Service
1. The Foliage – London.
2. Number One at The Balmoral – Edinburgh.
3. du Parc des Eaux Vives – Geneva.
Worst Service
1. Craft – New York. Choking man at next table ignored.
2. Abobe – Canterbury. Dinning room empty of staff on more than one occasion, forgetful waiter, customer repeatly having to shut the door to keep out the draft.
3. Benares – London. Guests having to make a real effort to attract the waiters attention.
Funniest excuse for bad service
“I am so sorry, but your wine order did not get to me” from the waiter who took the order : Abobe – Canterbury.
Fastest Napkin folding time
1. Craft – New York. All they were good at, unfortunately.
2. The Foliage – London.
3. San Pau – Spain. They don’t fold them they bring you a new one on a silver tray!.
Best Bread
1. Number One at The Balmoral – Edinburgh
2. Tom Aikens – London.
3. du Parc des Eaux Vives – Geneva. Formally number 1, but they no longer do the seaweed bread.
Best Dessert
1. Tom Aikens – London. Prune delight.
2. Semproniana – Barcelona. White chocolate infantile.
3. RSJ – London. Poached pear and Perkin ice cream.
The Portrait Restaurants Peanut Butter Cheese Cake would have been up here too, if they had not taken it off the menu. Hate when that happens 🙁
Worst Dessert
1. Harveys – Ramsgate.
2. Abobe – Canterbury.
3. Alkima – Barcelona.
Most disappointing – Places where the hype was really out of step with our experience.
1. Hibiscus – London.
2. Harveys – Ramsgate.
3. Alfie’s – London.
4. Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley – London.
Best value for money
1. Bistro de I’Hotel de Ville – Vevey.
2. The Foliage – London. Fixed price lunch.
3. Tram Tram – Barcelona.
Worst value for money
1. Hibiscus – London.
2. Abobe – Canterbury.
3. Harveys – Ramsgate.
Best View
30|40 at the Gerkin – London.
Best for Afternoon Tea
1. The Berkeley, Pret a Portea – London.
2. The Athenaeum – London.
Best Advertizing Video
Eleven Madison Park – New York.
Best Web site for a Restaurant
1. Eleven Madison Park – New York. Simple to navigate, easy to book, stylish with very appetising pictures.
2. Cinc Sentits – Barcelona. Stylish, easy to find key information, good on-line booking facilities.
3. Per Se – New York. Provides a lot of information, uses a simple format.
Worse Web site for a Restaurant
1. Sketch – London. A complete nightmare to navigate. What were they thinking when they choose this?. A good design is one that is both stylish and practical, this one is just downright silly.
2. El Celler De Can Roca – Girona. Another navigational nightmare, although not in the same class as Sketch.
3. Mugaritz – San Sebastian. You have to put your cursor over flying images to see tooltips and access key parts of the site. Not very practical at all.
For an interesting artical on this subject see:-
Most pretentious, but in a bad way!
1. Beau Rivage Palace (La Rotonde) – Lausanne. This restaurant fortunately is gone, its been replaced by Anne-Sophie Pic’s new restaurant.
2. La Dama – Barcelona. See also the La Dama entry in the post :- Worst of the Worst .
See also :-
We had watched Tom Kitchin on BBC’s Great British Menu and admired his ability to follow the brief and not merely repeat his normal repertoire. So it was with some anticipation that we made our way to a beautiful snowy yet sunny Leith. After our visit to Number One at The Balmoral the ambience was disappointing in comparison but then again not every restaurant can be located in a 5 star hotel. The Kitchin is a more modern colder affair located in a converted warehouse. However all was not lost, as course after course we were treated to some of the best food we had experienced this year with perfectly matched wine.
Again the highlight of this meal was the Monkfish, specifically Monkfish tail wrapped in pancetta with an amazing broccoli puree and pumpkin gnocchi.
The service was excellent and if we were ever in Edinburgh this would be one restaurant that we would happily visit regularly. If was also nice to see that even on a day so close to the Xmas holiday Tom was busy in the kitchen.
So can the top restaurants north of the border hold their own against the top London restaurants? Based on our experience at Number One Restaurant at The Balmoral Hotel, the answer is a resounding YES. Indeed they could teach some other Michelin establishments a thing or two about service and the importance of good bread. Bread is normally something we have found that a lot of the very best restaurants tend to dismiss. Not so at Number One, they have a “loaf trolley” and serve up world class bread baked on the premises by their Pastry Chef a former French Baker.
We really liked the dining room, the décor is warm and certainly in the evening very effective for a basement restaurant. There is a large bar area and two larger rooms with well spaced tables and curved booths that allowed everyone a good view of the room.
We went for the tasting menu with matching wines, which was all of a very high standard. The standout course being the Monkfish. The New Zealand wines were also very good indeed. I also really enjoyed the fois gras course with pineapple relish and pineapple bread. At the end of the meal the sommelier discreetly slipped us a small present in the shape of a full loaf of the wonderful walnut and raisin bread.
We also had pre dinner champagne cocktails in the lively Bollinger Bar at the Palm Court, which is a popular new venue for afternoon tea.
