The Table

EileenH

15th November 2009

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Nice food but wouldn't recommend Sundays, too busy. When I complained that our order appeared to get lost I was told they had 'More customers than they could cope with'. A lesson there I think. Be aware that the discretionary 12.5% service charge is at their discretion not yours! Don’t sit by the door either, very windy!

TheTable at 16/11/09

Hi,
Firstly, thanks for getting in touch, I'm so glad you liked the food; we really do appreciate the feedback.

I can only reassure you, as discussed, that we absolutely accept that, as per the BHTS guidelines, a service charge is entirely discretionary. It is, and always should be, a choice exercised by customers to reward good service, or indeed, to penalise poor service. We stand by the statement that you read on the bottom of our menus. I should explain that, for various reasons out of my control, we were understaffed last weekend, however this has been rectified, and we’ll have enough staff to cover demand from now on.

The door is entirely another matter – but I’m working on it! Thank you once again for bringing this matter to my attention.

Kind regards,
Shaun Alpine-Crabtree
Chef/Manager
The Table

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laissezfare

The Table Cafe: A Sensational Bruch in Southwark 21st September 2009

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[Non-photo Review]

Thank u v much twitter 4 ur gr8 recm’dation!

A few months ago, when I first began my journey into the world of twitter, I saw that one of my twitter foodie ‘friends’ was following a place called The Table Cafe (TTC) near Southwark Bridge on the South side of the Thames. I read some of their tweets and was impressed with their daily changing menu. I vaguely remember looking at their website too and noting their seemingly meticulous selection of suppliers, which ticked a lot of boxes (local, organic, etc.). Plus, they listed Monmouth as their coffee supplier, which is a good thing in my book. I kept telling myself the next time I was in that neighborhood (which is very rare), I must drop by and see what it was all about.

Mrs. LF and I were headed to Borough Market last Saturday to buy some pork from Peter Gott’s Sillfield Farm. This is so far the best pork in London I’ve had in the UK, which I first had at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen a few months back – see here, and especially comments from Peter at bottom of the post. Given that we would be in the general vicinity of TTC, I thought we could stop by there for brunch en route – and we did.

Welcome to Sweden, can I take your order

Walking into TTC, I felt as if I was entering someplace very familiar, but not exactly British. As far as I understand, TTC functions as the canteen for the firm of architects whose ground floor it inhabits (as well as the nearby office buildings). The exterior of the building is mostly glass, accented with angular flashes of bright yellow. Once inside, the clean modern lines and the use of simple and warm wood tables and benches immediately made both of us think of Scandinavia, and Sweden in particular for me. In fact, quite disturbingly, it reminds me of a particular haunt of mine in Stockholm.

The fairly modest square room is replete with red rectangular sheets of metal on the ceiling, a long and narrow kitchen, a stock room that is half on display, a stainless steel espresso machine, and a wooden table on top of which some assorted juices, cereals, milks and fruits lay ready and waiting. As you can see from the photos below, cutlery and napkins are provided on the tables and the place settings are the paper menus. You order at the counter.

The credit crunch brunch

I would hazard to guess that TTC’s main business is the weekday lunch crowd, and for that they have a daily changing menu which sounds pretty good and is amazing value with dishes from £2.85 (for a Spanish Tortilla made with free range eggs, heritage potatoes and sautéed white onion) upward. I say ‘amazing’ value because even the most expensive dishes (just under £8) are made from very high quality ingredients and seem very hearty.

One of the staff members said they’ve only started opening on the weekends in the last few months and are still not set on exactly what times they should open for and what menu they should use (i.e. should it just be brunch all day, or brunch then lunch, etc.?). On our visit, the weekend brunch menu was available. It sounded very appetizing and, if any good, would be much better value than most places offering similar brunch menus in the West End.

We made our decisions and sat back and waited for the food to arrive over a cup of tea. It was a Twinning’s tea bag of Earl Grey by the way, which was surprising as all of their other suppliers seem to be so carefully chosen. But I like their Earl Grey the best of the major brands, so no complaints.

After a good ten minutes, one of the chefs brought out the still hot plates to our table. We were a bit giddy as it looked like American sized portions, and visually both plates held a lot of promise.

Mrs LF said the following about her breakfast stack: “The toasted bagel was an original alternative to muffins, which are usually associated with poached eggs with hollandaise sauce. In this dish, the eggs were perfectly poached with a beautiful orangey yellow yolk as it was split open. The homemade baked beans were yummy, perfectly done and very special; how many places bother making their own baked beans these days? When it comes to baked beans, I tend to like Heinz, actually! But these were as much more delicious and satisfying. The hollandaise sauce was excellent in terms of taste (creamy and with the right amount of tang) and consistency. The chorizo sausage, however, didn’t stand out (maybe they forgot to put it in?) as I don’t actually remember eating it. Overall, it was very different compared to the breakfast we usually have at our favorite brunch places, which all tend to have the same items on the menu: English Breakfast, Eggs Benedict and so on.” 8/10.

My pancake looked and smelled beautiful. And I certainly wasn’t let down by the taste either. The large and very thin pancake had been cooked through exactly right: the edges were slightly crispy and the middle was soft and fluffy but not at all doughy. The sweetness of the maple syrup and caramelized bananas contrasted well with the saltiness of the extremely crisp and thin streaky bacon. I know this is a very American flavor combination, and I personally love it, although I can understand how some people are not the greatest fans of the extreme sweet and salty combination for breakfast food. For me it all worked together perfectly, and I thoroughly enjoyed every bite. 8/10.

Well worth the detour

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at TTC. It had a nice, laid back vibe and the food was well sourced, honest, wholesome and satisfying – with nice little twists to many of the dishes on the menu. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who lives in the area or anyone who might be passing by the neighborhood on the weekend and fancies a good brunch. In fact, we are thinking of taking our nephew there when he next visits from France. If I worked in the area, I would certainly be down there most days if the weekday food is anywhere near as good as the brunch and seems to represent great value for money.

By the way, in case you are curious, we slow-cooked the pork we got from Borough Market for about 5 hours and it was to die for. So full of flavor, perfectly crispy crackling, and served with cooked and slightly sweetened red cabbage and cooked apples.

Rating

Ambience: 8/10
Food: 8/10

*Note: I have only dined at The Table Cafe once for weekend brunch. Hey, that sort of rhymed!*

david_2001

Top Table 27th January 2008

1 found this helpful

This is a modern 'canteen' restaurant with hard wood bench or breakfast bar style seating arrangements.

The food is an excellent choice of staples (including freshly baked bread and soup) and tried and trusted favorites such as risotto, pasta, chille con carne, shepherds pie or quiche type options.

There is a 'serve your own' selection of salads as well as a choice of delicious home baked puddings.

I have only been here at lunchtime and for me it has the ideal combination of being quick, tasty, reasonably priced and catering to the local community and office workers.

Utilitarianism at it's best, cup of tea or fruity red optional.

rthould

Lovely food at great prices 17th October 2007

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I am a recent convert to the Table and think it should be as popular in the evenings and for Saturday brunch as it is during weekdays. I think they must have really upped their game since the reviews below as I really can't fault it (and promise I'm not in their employ). The food is great quality and at really reasonable prices. I've been there for brunch and very much enjoyed their eggs benedict and american style pancakes. They've recently started opening on Thursday and Friday nights and have a varied menu - there really is something for everyone. I have found the steak particularly delicious. Starters are about £3, mains between £8 and £13 and puddings at £3. I've only had the £12 ish wines and they've been delicious - much nicer than similar priced wines in comparable places. And it's a nice relaxed yet stylish atmosphere. Get yourself down there for goodness sake.

DanWilkinson

Great breakfast venue 15th October 2007

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Apart from the ubiquitous Starbucks etc, there are precious few places round here for a decent sit-down breakfast, so on the recommendation of a colleague I headed over for a breakfast meeting the other week. Top stuff all-round, eggs benedict featured top-notch bacon and great hollandaise. Only complaint might have been faintly watery eggs, but that's more unfortunate than unskilled in my opinion.

If you're after a hot brekkie in this part of town and don't fancy a grease-fest, you won't be disappointed. Great coffee too - would be the best around if it weren't for Monmouth...

Angel_Bury

28th May 2007

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oh dear this was a fishy disaster...I work just around the corner from the table and popped in last summer to have lunch fresh off their barbeque -which was parked out the back from about noon till 2.30 weekdays. I went for the fish kebabs served up with a taboubelish offering along with a melon and mint salad for pud.
I did rock up pretty late - just after 2 and I was bleedin starving! So I scuttled back to my desk clutching my £10 lunch near dribbling at the prospect. What I got was a couple of undercooked tentacles masquerading as squid clinging to a charred wooden skewer and one solitary unidentifiable lump of white fish.
What a swindle! They were clearly running short of supplies so had slipped quarter sized postions into take away boxes and hoped for the best. The melon and mint salad was delicious though, but not exactly rocket science.
Hopefully Shaun the chef of Walid's review is a new recruit and has put a stop to such shady practices. I've never bothered with setting foot in the place again.

walid

Architect inspired Coffee / Restaurant 27th April 2007

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The Table is found on the ground floor of the offices of the architects Allies and Morrison, who designed this interesting space. It is both earthy, minimalist and friendly kind of space.

The Table offers award winning self service food, carefully sourced and deliciously prepared. They even won the Time out Best Cheap Eats 2006. So in other words they must be doing something right!

According to their brochure - wherever possible they use organic, seasonal and locally sourced products. They are GM-free and
everything they serve is produced
in-house each day.

Unfortunately I was at the Table only for a quick coffee as I was early for a meeting across the street. Luckily however I got to meet with Shaun who is the chef / manager at the Table. You can see a picture of him. Shaun was very friendly person and really reflects the kind of brand values this places is giving out.

In terms of the coffee that I had it was a machiato that was correctly priced at £1.40 for central London. Coffee also tasted pretty good, probably Ivvy or Lavaza coffee I think.

They have this cool wooden structure that serves as a kind of buffet salad which immediately caught my attention when I came in.

For now I'm going to give this place a 3 star but I think once I have had the chance to taste one of their meals I will probably give them an extra star ;-)

PS. 1st two pictures are courtesy of Michael Franke