London Restaurant Festival: The Square

The Square

It's not often one gets to eat lunch at a 2-Star Michelin restaurant for a mere £25 for 3 courses, so we are eagerly anticipating this treat. Thanks to the LRF, The Square (Chef Phillip Howard) and a good number of other great restaurants are peeling back their prices so that we foodies-on-a-budget can see how the other half eat. A tube-strike Monday leads us to leave extra time for the journey up to Mayfair, but luckily we aren't troubled by anything like the total gridlock of a few days before, and actually arrive early. The restaurant is a short walk from Bond Street so we enjoy a little gawp at the flagship Louis Vuitton store - its windows filled with magical and whimsical ostriches and ostrich eggs are enough to brighten even the grayest day.


The Square is a large open restaurant, with floor-to-ceiling windows onto Bruton Street filling the space with light - a sculptural glass screen provides just enough privacy - and we are quickly and efficiently seated at a nice large table for 2 with a view towards the windows. The Festival menu offers 3 choices for starters and entrees, and 2 for dessert, so we choose without too much discussion or horse-trading. I choose a half bottle of a Rosé Champagne to pair with my dishes – I am a firm believer that bubbles are made to go with food - and a glass of Mt. Difficulty Pinot Gris for the tortellini then a Barbera d’Alba for the hare. 2 dishes of butter arrive: a tiny sculptured pine cone of unsalted that's too precious to spoil, and a much plainer slab of salted sprinkled with more sel de mer. Swiftly followed by a lovely selection of house-made breads. While I am admiring the silver Christofle salt and pepper mills, an unexpected amuse bouche is placed in front of us - a sample of what's to come, it’s a shot glass containing a layer of creamy onion mousse, a wild mushroom gelée and topped with a pumpkin foam and a handy parmesan tuile for stirring. Each individual flavour has a voice but the whole sings like a well honed choir.


Our two starters next: tortellini of langoustine claws and salmon, a carpaccio of shellfish and a Champagne foam, and a mousseline of grouse with pearl barley and lardo. The pasta is perfectly cooked, and resonates with an intensity of the seafood flavours while the sauce is more of a gentle bubble than a full-on foam. The grouse mousse is silky smooth and subtle and there are hints of wild mushrooms in the sauce – a lovely rendition of autumn flavours.


The seasonal theme is carried through to the entrees: saddle of hare with tarte fine of pear and celeriac, and fillet of cod with pumpkin purée, wild mushroom and sage. I’ve always thought of hare as being fairly game-y, but this one is tender and not at all strong flavoured, and the delicate tarte is another taste of autumn that’s a well balanced counterpoint. Sweet pumpkin and wild mushrooms echo that in the cod dish – both are perfect examples of balancing the yin and yang of contrasting flavours and textures.


Dessert choices are a Brillat-Savarin cheesecake with currants, and a chocolate ‘mess’. The mess is a chocolate lovers delight – a treasure trove of unsweetened cocoa mousse, milk ice-cream and warm chocolate sauce with some lovely chocolate crunchy bits – it’s a substantial dessert but we somehow manage to scoop out every last mouthful. The cheesecake is light and airy but it’s fighting a losing battle against the chocolate.


Finally, a tray of house-made nougat pieces with our coffee. Soft and chewy, the nougat is something of a signature of Chef Howard, as we recall from our previous encounter (see ‘The Square pops up in Putney').


The great thing about lunch is you have the rest of the day to recover from your excesses especially if you don’t have to go back to work afterwards, the other advantage is that many of London’s top restaurants offer a much better value at lunch so even without the LRF it’s possible to satisfy a Champagne taste on a beer budget.


We both feel decidedly like spheres rather than squares as we head back out to the street, but it is worth it: The Square lived up to our expectations in every way and in some cases, exceeded them.  Now, let's see how the ostriches are doing.