28th September 2008
All about the bottle
So who's fault is it when you make a bad menu choice? As soon as it arrive you know that you're bold choice was the wrong one. Your companions' meals are good - it's a hard one to call. How many scoring points should you take off when your 'renowned' ham and cheese pie is instantly forgettable...claggy cheese and seemingly reconstituted ham layered up. When i saw the pie, the browned, puffy pastry looked so inviting and with no slices taken out already, i had no idea of what waited within. It's a tricky one.
Apart from all this menu angst, the Cork and Bottle is brilliant. Tucked away in a very unpromising part of Leicester Square, it bustles with people who've spent half their lives drinking wine here. And good wine at that. Don Hewitson once came to the winery i was working at in the Barossa and bought 60 cases of Shiraz and Cabernet for this bar. We drank one of the few remaining bottles of Shiraz this evening and it was superb, with a really fair price tag to match. The rest of the list is jammed full of Don's character and personality. Great wines from his friends he has built up over the years and plenty of comment about what he thinks is over-rated or unacceptably expensive.
Ribeye steak in a Madeira sauce was wicked and cottage pie was rich and warming. The mackerel pate was really very good and none of it is too expensive. But if only i could just get over that damn pie-thing. In fact I have...i've decided. The atmosphere is great. The decor is like Gordon's with higher ceilings, more light and less soot/mould and the wine list superb. As other reviewers have said, you don't necessarily come here for the food. So embrace the Cork and Bottle. Sadly Don spends more of his time in the South of France these days but his Kiwi TV chef brother Iain was propping up the bar so the Hewitson reputation was safe. It's better that 3 stars but not quite up to 5. Which leaves...umm...4. Done.
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