Chez Bruce

It has been a long time since I have been to a fine dining restaurant.  It seems that having small versions of yourselves puts a crimp in your plans to enjoy sensory delights.  However, if there is a will there is a way so encumbered people that we are, our idea was to  take a weekday holiday while the kids were in nursery!  What a clever man I am.

As for selecting where to go, Chez Bruce was somewhere I had heard of many times before but never go around to trying.

A small cosy dining room in a fairly a non descript location off the side of a park.  No fancy decoration around.  A more subdued atmosphere suited me just fine given that I had recently been to Cocochine which was in this sense the opposite.

The experience was also in another way opposite too.

Bread that you don’t have to pay extra for.  A focaccia and a white loaf, both delicious but maybe that was as I didn’t have to shell out more for.

An amuse bouche arriving unannounced.  Parmesan crisps.  Flavourful, crisp, salty.  These readied the palate for more.

A note on the menu.  While we chewed on these little extras, we surveyed the menu.  Actually, surveyed is probably not the appropriate word as it was so short that it could be taken in with a glance.  It was fairly limited but in itself that gave me hope that what they did offer would be exceptional.  Either that or it really was a rubbish restaurant if even when they could control the guest’s choice, they couldn’t even deliver.

Starters

Hand-rolled cavatelli with braised lamb shoulder, fried crumbs, rosemary and pecorino.  A particularly meaty dish with delightful crunch.  Soft pasta, rich sauce and cheese led to a hearty and good dish.

Tagliatelle nero with cuttlefish ragù and marinated peppers.  The black ragu was excellent with eggy noodles.  It was smooth and salty in contrast to the above.  It did leave me with black lips to match my black humour.

Mains

Devonshire duck with feuilleté Lyonnaise, pickled cherries and French beans.  Meaty and fulsome, was missing some potatoes as there was nothing readily at hand to soak up the sauce.

Pork fillet and veal polpetta with provençale tomato, salsa verde and polenta.  Decent, if not blowing you out of the water.

Dessert

Buttermilk pudding with almond tuile and strawberries.  Avoiding cloyingly sweet, crunchy, salty, smooth and sour.  This was rather good.  With the many sensory delights of this dish of sound, texture and flavour, it was a win.

Chocolate pudding.  Deep chocolate taste set off with icecream on top.  With nuts of course.  Sweet but not too sweet.  Satisfying but not too heavy.  A good way to end.

It has been too long since I’ve had modern French cooking.  It was decent but a bit too heavy for me.  It sadly seemed that although starters were good, main courses took a dip before desserts galloped to the rescue.  So it was an enjoyable if unsurprising meal and the novelty factor of not leaving covered in other’s food scraps for once (nothing to do with the restaurant) was a novelty for me.  As for whether I would come back in the future?  Life is too short but you could do worse.

Score

A quiet eating 8/10.

Lunch was GBP48 (3 courses) excluding drinks and service.

Chez Bruce

2 Bellevue Rd,
London SW17 7E