Themed dinner menu of six courses that changes every 6 weeks - limited UK chain

Six by Nico is the brainchild of Scottish chef Nico Simeone who now has 13 of the brand across the major cities of the UK and Dublin. The menu changes theme every 6 weeks and is priced at £45 for the six courses. I opted to go for the themed menu ‘The Chippie’ as this is the one that interested me the most (who doesn’t like a play on fish and chips?!). As a possible flagship menu, I felt it didn’t have the innovation I was hopper for and was actually let down on a couple of points, but ultimately this is a fun option to go for, albeit served by staff on my occasion that struggled a little to provide the polish that one would find at more swept up establishments.

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The menu of ‘The Chippie’ is as follows at the numbers to show in the order received:

1st Chips & Cheese – Parmesan Espuma 7 Curry Oil & Emulsion / Crisp Potato Terrine. This was a delicate, layered potato with curry mayonnaise, cheese espuma which was pleasant, but lacking an in-depth Parmesan flavour.

2nd Scampi – Brandade / Dill Emulsion / Gribiche / Peas / Beurre Blanc. This was a good combination of gribiche with the fish, but because it is a brandade (white fish diced with potato) the only thing lacking was the inherent flavour of scampi (langoustine tail) which I was most looking forward to. I have an issue with a dish being called scampi but with no scampi, but as a fried fish dish, it was enjoyable.

3rd Steak Pie – 24 Hour Beef Shin Burnt Onion Ketchup Mushroom Duxelle Meaty Salsa. This was pleasant enough and worked well together but not the heights of beef flavour that it could have been in spite of being beautifully tender. The other issue was that it simply was not a pie! A pie has pastry, usually all encasing, some modern plays with just a little, but to have none at all and call it a pie – why? It’s also a staple of the chip shop, so this was another disappointment.

4th Fish Supper – Scrabster Coley / Pickled Mussels / Confit Fennel / Samphire / Beer Emulsion. This was succulent fish, an original and pleasing beer emulsion, all offset with much needed and pleasingly pickled fennel and crunchy samphire, topped with batter bits. I did enjoy this dish and was probably the real essence of the theme.

5th Smoked Sausage – Trio of Pork / Apple / Crispy Crackling / Salt Baked Celeriac / choucroute. This was very nicely presented with a very well seasoned sausage, viscous and rich reduction, apple gel (nice) and chocroute for the pork belly which were all necessary for the pork that was sadly, quite bland and with very tough fat. The crackling was very hard and not good. The little black pudding was wrapped in fried potato was pleasant and mercifully small. This was an ok dish but quite heavy at the same time and the main parts were essentially drowned in the accompanying components.

6th Deep Fried Mars Bar – Chocolate Pave / In Bru Sorbet / Deep Fried Mars Bar. I was very much looking forward to this and it was a really fun dessert with the iron bru sorbet and pleasant blood orange chocolate pave. The deep fried mars bar was essentially hollow and extremely chewy (borderline unmanageable) but a playful dish. Strangely I didn’t think it was a natural pairing altogether, but interesting to try nevertheless.

Coffee was from Azzuro coffee and luckily the bill was a promotion price of £35, finishing at £39 with service charge. It was good to see this for myself, but based on the experience, I don’t think I need to rush back to try the next themed dinner, which is a shame as I had higher hopes for this meal.

Food Grade: 57%