Pleasant and cosy North London suburban restaurant with wonderful & good value snacks with a pricier la carte menu
Portland was Opened in 2015 and gained a Michelin star in its first year of opening and has held it ever since. It was headed up by Will Lander (also of Quality Chop House) but the head chef on this second visit of mine was Theo Clench. The set menu lunch (only certain days of the week) was £35 per person was a reasonable option and whilst the canapes were optional purchase extras which is always a shame, the eat out to help out scheme took £20 off the meal which was a very welcome helping hand and ultimately it was good to get out, post lockdown to support restaurants whilst revisiting a one of the few Michelin starred restaurants I have only been to once. This lunch proved to be good quality again and a reliable pair of hands in the kitchen.
Home made bread of spelt and rye was enjoyed at the table before some selected canapes of shiitake mushroom with crumbs on tartlets and chicken liver parfait tubes with pickled grape and apple gels on top. The latter was excellent.
Starters chosen were cured Cornish mackerel, plum, almond and marigold which was fresh and well balanced. The second was an impressively looking squid ink linguini, trout roe, brioche crumbs and cockle sauce.
The mains included lovely Herdwick lamb from the Lake District which came with aubergine, ratatouille piquet pepper, ricotta and Parmesan. Green leaves spinach were also added. The other main was a roasted duck breast, confit leg, beetroot purée rehydrated cherry purée and radicchio leaves. Both these proved hearty and cooked well. Meats came from Slate Down Farm.
My dessert of English strawberries, coconut, white chocolate and sourdough tuile was very good. My dining companion’s pain perdu with stone fruits (mainly plum), lemon verbena and yoghurt sorbet was very good as well. The total bill with the eat out to help out discount of £20 came to £65 and including the service charge, this £32.50 per person was obviously very good value. The food was was reliable and it was good to reconfirm the reliability of the food here at Portland.
Food Grade: 79%
This is a quiet and cosy restaurant with the feel of an upmarket cafe but serving carefully crafted food. The service was warm from start to finish and I loved the cocktail and wine options as they have clearly thought about making people comfortable, in a relaxed environment but not forgotten the importance of being able to have very good options (for e.g. the explanations of all wine options and selected upper echelon wine choices by the glass so that one can try. Pleasing products and a venue which I think would be even better with a set menu.
Although you could argue that the snacks should be gratis as an amuse bouche they were sublime; in particular the white truffle and gruyere cheese macaroon and chicken skin with liver parfait, both at £1.50 each. I thought these were delightful and so I ordered another couple and was glad as a result they were not complimentary as I wouldn’t be able to do that otherwise(!).
I opted for a starter and one side for my first course and another starter and a side as my second course as I wanted to try as much as possible. The first being sashimi of halibut, buttermilk and black radish which was satisfying and the baby gem, herbs, radish and buttermilk seemed the obvious partner (nothing fancy here but a pleasant buttermilk glaze). I thought the salsify, mangalitsa pig, comté was pleasant but slightly less pig on the plate as I was hoping as only a few shavings but agreeable none the less. The real hero of the day though was the remaining side ratte potato with montgomery cheddar which came as a delightful airated sauce. This was beautifully done. The dessert of hazelnut éclair was a fine finish no question – wonderfully flavoured cream and crispy outer layer with salted nuts and sugar on the top.
All in all I thought this was a pleasant experience and I’m sure the mains would have been equally so and I will come back to do one of those when I can. I do feel the menu would benefit from having a set menu at lunch as this would give a bit more variety to the food options, however, I did find all these well done on the day.
Food Grade: 79%
My hobby-turned-passion began to evolve during my assignments to London where I was fortunate enough to be able to explore all the Michelin starred restaurants in my spare time and as a result, I gradually built up a catalogue of all these venues.
Leave a Review of this Restaurant