Merchants Tavern

Merchants Tavern

Merchants Tavern is an all-day bar & dining room serving breakfast, lunch & dinner. Modern European cuisine with a seasonal focus. Make a reservation today.

Modern European Cuisine All-Day-Dining - Merchants Tavern Shoreditch

http://www.merchantstavern.co.uk

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Restaurant review: Angela Hartnett is at the helm of Shoreditch's ...

Review analysis
location   staff   food   drinks  

Hogget broth, pearl barley and Berkswell toast; mallard, mustard greens and Sarladaise potatoes; roast pork neck, forgotten carrots and girolle persillade.

The mismatch between the manly, clubbable dining room and the dainty refinement of the food was at its starkest in a main course of monkfish in which meaty slices were served over slippery farfalle and mussels in a weeny, starter-sized dish.

Service moves at a pace to suit the time-pressed City luncher, though my guest Dan did wonder whether they would travel this far – according to him most of them barely have time to grab a takeaway from the apparently very superior Coco di Mama group.

Maybe a bit TOO good; this room and its location are enough of a draw, and that designer-dingy bar promises every kind of fun.

All things must pass, of course, but if it relaxes a bit, and makes the food a bit bigger or the prices a bit smaller, this Merchants Tavern seems like the nearest thing yet to a sure-fire survivor in Shoreditch.

Merchants Tavern | Shoreditch, Clerkenwell | Restaurant Reviews ...

The Merchant's Tavern, London EC2, restaurant review - Telegraph

Review analysis
ambience   food  

The remoulade was faintly mustardy and mainly mayonnaisey – P said she’d never had so many vegetables on her plate (there were also some painterly red cabbage leaves) and yet felt so self-indulgent.

I had savoy cabbage, ham and eggs (£9) – I know, the most curious-sounding dish; I would never have ordered it if I’d seen it written down (it was a special).

A poached egg on top was fun, great for the messy texture, and some shards of tough, Euro-ham (Bayonne, at a guess) complicated the mouthfeel (in a good way).

P, of gamey tastes, carried on with roast loin of venison with braised red cabbage and sprout tops (£19.50) – she’d had a ton of red cabbage by the end of her meal, but this treatment was my all-time favourite, the exquisite two-hour Viennese slow-cook that turns it into the world’s most unlikely comfort food.

P had lemon posset (£7) with luxurious, dried muscat grapes and a shard of pistachio meringue sticking out of the top.

Merchants Tavern, London, restaurant review - Telegraph

Review analysis
location   drinks   food   menu  

The whole front area was given over to the bar, with an enormous exposed red steel beam running down the centre of the ceiling.

It was as warm and reassuring as that sounds – or at least the first two bites were, before Lara summarily swapped it for her scallop ceviche.

Lara had a fat pink duck breast on a bed of crushed turnip, with a sliver of aubergine and a tangerine and plum sauce.

Little things, for sure; but they make a difference if you are operating, like Merchants Tavern, in the grey area between “smart” and “very smart”.

It’s time to let go: Shoreditch is just another reliably nice bit of the capital, and this is a reliably good restaurant.

Restaurant review: Merchants Tavern, London EC2 | Life and style ...

Review analysis
food   menu   value  

I've eaten from the sensibly-priced lunch menu, too (£18 for two courses, £22 for three): wood pigeon, its innate earthiness blasted up a few notches with sticky beetroot and more hazelnuts; rosy collops of lamb neck, nutty barley and a soothing onion purée.

The confidence to accessorise a generous hunk of pork belly with little more than roast cauliflower and savoy cabbage, sophistication coming from an almost throwaway blob of the most intense, bitter grapefruit purée.

The confidence to put a cheese and ham toastie on the bar menu at the same time as pig's head "kremeski" (sic) with tarragon mayonnaise.

The confidence to let vegetables shine, perhaps a hangover from Borthwick's time spent with Michel Bras, the French guru of veg, but with none of the tortured grandstanding that can come with this kind of CV.

To serve pork neck as a meal for two, with what looks like a bubbling vat of toasty cauliflower cheese but, confusingly, is girolles persillade, is a piece of theatre that draws envious stares from every other diner in the room.

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