Kitty Fisher

Kitty Fisher.  Is that some kind of cat?

In genteel Mayfair reclines this laid back restaurant with little wooden tables, bar lounge seating and waiters with a dignified yet rakish sense of dress.  It is no wonder that Mr Cameron comes here to dine sometimes.  He must get a little tired of being surrounded by too many uptight people and needs to unwind.  Plus, good food also helps to distract from the latest new story.  Or maybe that’s just me.

Bread and burnt onion butter.  This was ok but I admit to being unable to really taste the burnt onion taste.  It left me waiting for my cat sense to tingle.

Burrata, beetroot, radicchio and pomegranate.  Again, not bad but not overwhelming either.  Maybe I just have a lack of predisposition towards burrata.

Beef tartare, horseradish, shallots and grumolo.  This was the surprise of the meal.  The beef had been lovingly mixed with spices and just the right amount of horseradish.  Enough to jolt you out of the recent meltdown of the stock market.

Cornish crab, barbecued cucumber, dill and seaweed.  Reminds me of when I tried rock climbing.  Looked great at the start but when I was halfway up I got stuck.  With a rictus of terror fixed on my face, I couldn’t go up or down but finally had to be lowered slowly to the ground. Kind of like this dish, sounded good but once I tasted it, I thought it was a mistake.  Probably worth a pass.

Onions, courgettes, spinach and potatoes with cheese.  Although I lack enthusiasm for food which hasn’t been kicking and screaming, I would very happily eat this again as I think this is one of the best vegetable dishes I’ve ever had.  The courgettes, onions and spinach were all cooked just enough.  They weren’t subject to my own cooking methods which are rather more nuclear and tend to break down structural integrity to produce a gruel coloured by the original vegetable pigment.  Special mention goes to the potatoes here.  Soft inside and firm outside.  But it was covered in cheese….  A light cheese crusting that added a delightful crunchy and salty counterpoint to the flaky potatoes.  Now I just need to figure out how to do this myself.

Galician beef.  12 years old.  I first thought that that was a typo.  12 years old??? In an age when our chickens live just 33 days, a 12 year old cow must seem like a sage.  Most importantly, would it taste stringy and old?  A resounding no.  I guess when you live that long, muscles tend to develop in a way not often seen in food.  You know, muscles that are actually used for well… moving.  Which is rather ironic given that we had to wait 45 minutes for this dish to be cooked.  Guess old meat needs to be cooked slowly.  Although in our case, the wait was well worth it as I think this is one of the best examples of beef I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.  It had an ideal ratio of meaty meat to succulent fat.  It was so good that conversation round the table temporarily died down as we chomped away.  Grandpa cow was worth the wait.

Clementine tart with cream.  We had to finish with some sweet treats after the surprising of the beef.  This tart was sweet and tangy, and the smoothness of the cream only highlighted the slightly tart tart.

Poached pear, crumble and clotted cream ice cream.  We thought that this was the better of the two desserts as shown by the sparkling clean plate at the end.  Scraped clean.  The sweetness of the pear, the smoothness of the ice cream and the crunch of the crumble hit all the right notes.  Something simple yet done so very well.

Although I went in thinking that a restaurant in Green Park would bankrupt me, I was pleasantly surprised that I walked away with the clothes on my back.  Prices have clearly increased substantially since we last checked their website (about a 50% increase) although the quality of the food shows why.  We left in the end feeling very satisfied, like a cat that had got the cream.  Now, got to find an ancient chicken somewhere.

A quiet eating 8/10.

Dinner (3 courses) was GBP33 excluding drinks and service.

Kitty Fisher

10 Shepherd Market
London W1J 7QF