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Published: June 26th 2005
After our brush with (minor) celebrity chef Ben O'Donoghue at the Atlantic Bar and Grill in Soho we thought we'd aim our sights a bit higher and head to Jamie Oliver's London restaurant Fifteen for lunch. Actually we were lucky enough to be given a voucher to Fifteen by two of Andrew's clients in Adelaide to thank him for being their personal trainer. It was a very generous and thoughtful gift and we felt extremely privileged.
Fifteen is housed in an old warehouse at the end of a small and quiet street in the east central area of London, an up-and coming area that appears pretty dull and drab until you scratch the surface. Not somewhere you'd expect a world-famous restaurant to be housed, but in a way that adds to the charm.
After watching the television series on the setting up of this restaurant, which aims to take unemployed and underpriveleged young people and give them the skills to work in the hospitality industry, we thought that we'd be heading upstairs to the restaurant but in fact we were ushered down a bright and well-lit set of stairs to an open plan room basement room littered with tables, chairs and an row of bright pink bench-style seating. On the wall opposite us was a picture of a pig - graffiti style. Kind of odd, but it worked!
Enough about the setting ... onto the most important part. The food! We ordered a glass of wine each but there was a problem with the 'wine by the glass' fridge not being switched on in time so we were given a complementary glass of wine by the friendly Australian sommelier. Can't get away from our countrymen anywhere in London it seems! For entree I ordered a roasted white peach and mozzarella salad which came with mixed salad leaves and an aged balsamic vinegar, and Andrew ordered the scallop crudo, the restaurant's signature dish which was a bit like sashimi and presented beautifully on the plate. Both were absolutely superb ... and huge serves. For main course we both chose the monkfish, which came served with vegetable tempura, it was very tasty but I must admit a bit on the oily side for my liking. Sorry Jamie! Once again the serves were huge though and believe it or not we were too full for dessert.
The restaurant had a lovely relaxed atmosphere, with beautiful soft light filtering through an atrium skylight and a very pleasant place to spend an afternoon. Unfortunately we did not see the man himself, however as we took a photo at the front of the restaurant we spotted a couple of staff in the alleyway, one of them in tears so we did feel like we had an experience in keeping with what we saw on televison!
The rest of our afternoon was spent sitting at a pavement table of a great restaurant over- looking Sloane Square where we drank a delicious deep and fruity French red wine from the Cote du Rhone. We were in the company of one of Andrew's clients from Adelaide who was over on business with her husband, her daughter and an Englishman who now lives in Japan and has recently bought a vineyard, and I think a winery in the Barossa Valley. But of course! Hmmm, this is the way to live in London we thought. Sadly the reality of our situation dawned pretty quickly and we were back into the job hunting to support our lavish lifesyle preferences with avengance the next day.
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stu and kaz
non-member comment
we're moving soon
Dubes and Catherine...we love reading your journal entries, Catherine you should be a travel writer - you have a wonderful writing style. As we're moving and don't know what our new email address will be in India, can you send these blogs to me (stu) at my work address...hope to see you soon...stu, kaz and harrison.