Launceston Place, W8: How to ruin a good meal.
Another cold wintry day in London and brisk walk from Gloucester Road underground station, Launceston Place is amongst one of the more idyllic residential addresses in central London. Along a parade of almost village-esque shops in an area known as Kensington village, Launceston Place the restaurant, finds its home. Acquired in the summer of 2007 by D&D London, owners of Coq d’Argent, Le Pont de la Tour, Sartoria, and Butlers Wharf Chop House amongst others. They brought in Tristan Welch, former head chef of Marcus Wareing in the days of Petrus. Most recently Steve Groves, their Junior Sous Chef, won Masterchef The Professionals Competition 2009. Checking all the right boxes. Small and intimate, their dining room was warm, separated in the middle by an internal window, and with the feel of a sitting room with sombre dark gray walls and carpet not much lighter. We were sat in the middle of the restaurant and had spiced savoury parsnip crisps, wrapped in ribbons, to nibble on whilst we made our choices. There were two menus during lunch service, a “lunch” and a “dinner” menu varying in price, £20 and £45 respectively, and I chose the latter.
Hot and cold leek soup was the amuse bouche and led to my starter of scallops. Presented on a piece of olive wood, the two large scallops, balanced in their shells, tasted like they had been plucked from the sea and roasted only moments before being brought to me. With firm slightly seared outside these rather large scallops were soft and sweet on the outside with perhaps the resistance of extra firm tofu on the inside. Perfect scallops. My main of suckling pig glistened on its white plate with a honey emulsion and midget baby pink radishes on a bed of a warm potato salad. It was however a let down that the crackling wasn’t crisp as you might expect. Crackling should after clearly “crackle”. Not so then. The young suckling piglet meat however was tender and juicy. My rice pudding dessert did take less time than the prescribed 20 minutes. It made the best part of the meal, The rice pudding soufflé was small but perfectly formed and came with a very English raspberry ripple ice cream.
It wasn’t the barely crispy crackling or the single curly hair found in one of my fellow diner’s braised wild Hare main, for which, I must add her entire meal was complimentary as well as an extra dessert, that left a very bad taste in my mouth. It was to be incorrectly told by a surly waitress, at the very end of my meal, that I had to be reminded that the restaurant manager had told me not to take photos of the food. Not least the restaurant manager, Hadi Aknin, had actually posed for a photo at the start of our meal brandishing their showpiece, a 300g White Alba Winter Truffle, a gram or half of which might end up on your risotto of the same name for a £30 supplement. Apart from this bothersome waitress, I had a good meal although the same can’t be said for my diners, who had ordered form the lunch menu and come across the braised Hare as a main, with hair or not, it was just too salty even against the chicory and pear salad. However I will only comment on my choices to conclude this. Tristan Welch has come from the French classicism of Petrus to serving up modern English food and I enjoyed my meal. However I am in no rush to go back.
Launceston Place
1a Launceston Place
London W8 5RL
Tel: 020 7937 6912
Tube: Gloucester Road
www.launcestonplace-restaurant.co.uk
Some more photos from lunch at Launceston Place…
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17 Responses to “Launceston Place, W8: How to ruin a good meal.”
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Hmm, Launcester Place is a funny one to call, I’ve heard so many reports of its inconsistencies, potential greatness, but not with hair….
..On the other hand, I am now crazy jealous about your bokeh.
Oh dear – that’s no good, is it. I had a great meal there, but this was in June 2008 – incidentally, back then the 6 or 7 course tasting menu cost the same as your dinner.
So when we went for dinner, it was also £45 for the set menu (£60 for the tasting menu which we didn’t have) and I got THREE SCALLOPS! You think they just decrease the number of scallops being it’s “lunch”? That is just awful, especially at the same price.
The photo story is priceless, I’m glad you posted the photo of the head manager
Kang – ha ha ha. Not heard very good things about this place lately.
Lizzie – What?! They’ve hocked prices up that much. Mind you £45 for a tasting menu is f-ing cheap.
Catty – it sounds like instead of hocking prices up, they’ve cut on different things. I don’t think they should give you less food just because you choose the dinner menu at lunch!
Sick Pictures.! What set up are you using?..loving the narrow DoF in the food shots… you want photography comissions??
You clearly like taking photos so I can imagine how were disappointed to be told not to take photos! I’d love to visit this restaurant though.
nice website!
Fantastic photos Mark. My review of Launceston Place will be up shortly. I can’t believe I went there in October – am I a slacker or what?! Let’s just say that our meal there was one of extremes…
Charlie, James, Laissez-Fare – thank you for your kind words about my photos
Charlie – well, I am freelance gun for hire if anyone is interested! I’m slowly putting together my portfolio website, which will launch in a couple of weeks maybe.
James – approach with some caution. This restaurant has incredibly mixed reviews of late.
Laissez Fare – I have many many half or almost completed write ups from the last 6 months, but they will start to appear on here… I am the worst…
Thank you for the information provided.I love food and restaurants so this gives me great ideas
I would like to understand how all the food bloggers have now come to this so call “food critic” job, where is Jay rayner, Charles champion, Fay Macshler, Mathew Fort? the ones who have been doing this for years not the so young bored ignorent probably still student at UCL people.
I mean you all think you are qualified to judge when you clearly have no understanding of working in the catering industry or the finedinning world nor palate! If you were to review you should all be worrying about how you are going to increase dinners to enjoy eating out and not be dissappointing the industry as a whole. There are many restaurants out there who refuse taking pictures becuase of this nonsense but to then use it to be popular becuse its great PR well thats totally a diferent subject and rude. launceston place is a very fine establishment and ive been coming here for donkey years and it has changed for the best, it has definatley lived up to the standards and has done a good job in making the local community proud, after all we were coming here for 30 years and no one likes change, but they have managed to keep that bond that we had with Simon Slater and Hadi Aknin the new maitre’d has lived up to it certainly well.
well done Launceston Place!
please take my comments seriously and not to be offended.
Thanks Name and Shame – haknin_@hotmail.com for your generalisation of all food bloggers.
Please pin point the sentence, in this post, and in fact, on this website, in which I claimed to have a job as a “Food Critic”. I do love that you did attempt to read my blog. I am qualified to judge the food I eat, as I am the one eating it. I never claim to have the finest palate in the world and I don’t pretend to either. Would you rather read something along the lines of… “If I had finer palate, I might find this dish a bit more interesting, but a slice lemon floating in a little bowl of hot water just didn’t ooze of any umami”? Happy now?
It’s so annoying when people think you have to be an expert in food in order to review it.
If the blog writer had said something like ‘I complained because my gazpacho was cold’ then you could legitimately say they didn’t know what they were talking about, But this is not analysing the inner workings of a jet engine, or critically analysing a classical musical composition. It is just saying if something tasted good or not.
Whether someone finds something tasty or not is purely subjective. There shouldn’t be snobbery in food and food reviewing, after all we are only having something to eat.
Absolutely. You don’t have to be an expert in anything to write about. You are after all allowed to have an opinion aren’t you? The worst thing is that I actually enjoyed the food… and this guy decides to pick up my ability as a critic of the food that ended up lining my very own stomach paid for with money I earnt. Clearly the invention of the pen and education also grieves this person as they do not agree that experiences should be shared. Let’s go back a couple of thousand years. Ban the pen! Ban education!
to Name and Shame
Patrick is right and I agree as a french man (best known for their cuisine) who cook and go to restaurant all over the world to taste any cuisine… you don’t need to be an expert nor to work in a cuisine world to give and share your feel and taste about what you eat or where you go, we leave in a world of freedom where people can say what ever they feel about what they eat.
I found this blog very helpful and interesting where the pictures are always nice and smooth.
I had the chance to be educated and introduced to food by my father as a child as a part of our culture, this is not the case for everyone and we should take the opportunity to learn from any blog or people to enrich or knowledge…
anyway nuff said for today and I am not hiding by an other name and shame to say what I have to say “world is rich by it’s diversity”
stephane MINIER
Wait, am I missing something here? Is the current Maître d’ of the restaurant, Hadi Aknin posing as an anonymous customer here, i.e. ‘Name and Shame’ (aka ‘haknin_hotmail.com’, which is strikingly similar to the name H[adi] Aknin)? That is just not good form.
Anyway, most food bloggers are pretty clear about what they feel are their strengths and shortcomings are, and only a minority of them say things they have absolutely not business saying…and these are not usually the popular blogs.
I think what is clear is that, in additional the to national media reviewers that everyone is familiar with in their own country of residence, there is now another source of information about restaurants created by restaurant-goers of all types on the blogosphere. Just as with professional film or restaurant reviews, you eventually learn which voices/palates you tend to agree with and learn what to take with a grain of salt, etc. The food blogging world was conceived quickly, with ferocious energy across many countries, and is still rapidly evolving. Sure, not all food blogs are created equal (neither are ‘professional’ critics), but there are some very good ones out there now, about all ranges of subjects (and often accompanied by amazing photography), and I can only seeing them continue to improve as this little niche better defines itself and continues to grow.
Nice to know that some bloggers like you still spend the time and effort to produce quality content.
I was looking for something completely different, but found your ! And have to say . Nice read. I m bookmarking it!.