Philpott's Mezzaluna

Angella

Foie Gras & Truffles For Me Please 14th December 2007

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THE NAME
Mezzaluna is Italian for half moon or middle moon if you prefer to remember it that way. You know how the month starts with the full moon, later the half moon - ah! I learned that at reception in their restaurant.

Another diner tells me that a mezzaluna is also the half-moon or boat-shape chopper. A chef might use it in the kitchen, so there's another way of remembering the name.

Decor
Great. In the entrance hall lots of amusing masks and half moon sculptures with faces hanging on the wall. Table displaying food guides. Large colourful portraits of well known film personalities such as Sophia Loren and Madonna.

Table setting: Cutlery, crockery, napkins, flowers
Table elegant though not wonderful. Tablecloth and white cloth napkins. Sad looking real flowers. Excellent and unusual crockery was the soup plate with a small round centre and huge lip. Swanky salt and pepper cellars. Huge brandy glasses for wine. Wine cooler on the table for the white wine bottle.

Chef
The proprietors are David Philpott and Alex Ross, according to the address card I picked up when I was there. I keep their card pinned on a board in the hall alongside a lot of other restaurant cards, in alphbatical order.

Address Card
Their card is both grandest and most useful when you are trying to persuade somebody else that this is where you should go to eat. On the front of the card is a picture of the restaurant with the name address phone and fax numbers.

It's a double card, like a small book cover. The middle double page spread has testimonials from Time Out, the Ham & High (short for Hampstead and Highgate - the local newspaper) and from Fay Maschler of the Evening Standard.

On the right are the opening times, the webpage www.philpotts-mezzaluna.com and a handy map.

On the back are pictures of two dishes and of David Philpott.

FOOD
Before meal food
The bread was plain or with olives. And oil to dip it in. (I prefer hot brown bread and melting yellow butter, sigh, but it was okay.)

Seriously good food. I go there to eat foie gras at affordable prices. And sometimes they serve truffles - the savoury sort.

Soup
I sipped pumpkin soup. De-lish! What made it really good were the croutons which contained herbs.

Main Courses
One of my companions had fish, and another selected salmon. I chose chicken in breadcrumbs with pistachio. I was attracted by the idea of pistachios. I don't normally like meat dried out, nor diet-breaking breadcrumbs. I prefer succulent chicken in a sauce. But it made a change.

The creamed potato was good. Not super-good, but good.

Desserts
Desserts on Visit Three: Desserts are wonderful. I like to choose a chocolate concoction. We once left a friend's husband at home babysitting and we took him back a dessert as consolation.

We are always satisfied, despite the occasional mistake on their part or ours. I chose a grilled pineapple dessert and left half of the fruit and pud because part of it was cooked black. That seems to be a modern fashion, black stripes on everything. I've cut black off my food since friends of mine who work at a hospital sent back a blackened pizza. They said over-cooked food which has gone black can give you cancer. I thought that the servers should have asked if everything was all right and when I asked them to take away part of my dessert they should have changed it. (My family, however, were quite happy with the restaurant. I was the only one having a two minute grump.) Anyway, next month the desserts will probably be different. I've sent back or cut off bits of chicken in grill restaurants and rejected blackened roast potatoes which other diners ate happily in other restaurants.)

Desserts on Visit Four:
Excellent warm chocolate pudding with delightful ice cream containing crunchy chocolate bits.
Pleasant cooked pear.
Apple tart tastes wonderful and almondy.

The menu changes every Sunday. A sample menu is on the website and they say you can phone them to ask for the current menu.

Coffee and chocolates
Full marks to any restaurant such as this one which serves a real chocolate or small chocolate biscuit with the coffee. This place does both. The black and white sandwich design chocolate was chilled so maybe don't grab it straight away. Be sure it's the right temperature. Not cold but not melting alongside the coffee.

The biscuit is dry with a nut. My friend said it's the sort of biscuit designed for dunking in your coffee.

Coffee is Illy. Made is some horrendously expensive machine which cost them a three figure sum to repair. We are not surprised. We just checked on line to find the prices of an Italian espresso coffee machine to replace ours which broke. Machines can cost up to nearly a thousand pounds.

BOOKING
You must book busy weekends. It's not that big. But Friday in January 2009 no trouble getting a table. Apart from the credit crunch, January is when the Xmas season bills arrive from the credit company and you are recovering from too much food and eating out over Xmas and New Year.

Servers and Service
Some are cheerier than others. One of the servers when asked who was shown in the paintings kidded us that one of the paintings was him. The paintings seem to show Madonna, Marlon Brando and other film stars - or your server. A fun guessing game.

We were able to share two starters. They divided our soup into two small bowls.

Take away food was put in foil containers with lids. No bag was provided but I had a plastic bag with me.

SERVICE CHARGE & PRICES
Service charge is 12 and a half per cent. No comment. On second thoughts I will comment. For our money we did get lots of staff loitering within hailing distance early and late evening and rushing past during busy mid-evening.

A glass of champagne or kir royale cost £7. You can have a two course, three course or four course set meal.

OFFERS
If you are a regular they list your name in a book and after half a dozen meals you get an offer which I think is a free meal or free wine.

Toilets
The gents has two fetching pictures of Sophia Loren, properly clothed but one has knees apart and the other shows decollete. How would I know? One entrance door and then two more doors, ladies ahead, men to the left. Separate cubicles for men and women but anyone can make a mistake. (While I was there a man did so and apologized. If the men are using the Ladies then ...)

OPENING TIMES
Lunch noon to 2.30. Sunday noon until 3 pm.
Closed Saturday lunch and Monday. Dinner 7 pm until 11 pm.

MUSIC
Background music. New music this month. Pleasantly jolly tunes sounded like the Beach Boys followed by mournful slow music which sounded like a cross between a lovelorn Italian pop singer and a dying swan.

SEATING
Chairs have round seats which don't support all the way to your knees and a horizontal bar. However, they provided us with two fabric supports which solved this problem - though then raising me so that my feet no longer touched the ground.

TEMPERATURE
Despite having the hot soup - in a plate so hot I burned my fingertip - I still had cold hands and my friend retrieved her scarf which she'd removed on arrival. Wear not just a blouse but a jumper or fancy cashmere top in winter. I could have done with starting with mulled wine, if they'd had it, or failing that a long hot coffee.

CONCLUSION
Restaurant can be relied upon to provide a surprising menu prepared by a real chef.

Angella at 22/06/09

June 2009 - my family tried to phone and book from overseas - no reply.
In UK my family drove past and saw bare tables and a property agent's sign saying restaurant for sale. It was a great restaurant but had high prices.
I hope somebody will be re-opening it soon, maybe with bargain lunches, or, in addition to a la carte dinners, set meals at a range of prices starting from a modest one or two course dinner, plus early evening offers, and the option of coffee with cake or a sandwich during the day.
The area is now lacking a smart place to have a healthy snack or celebration dinner . Over in Hatch End the new Caffe is packed with people sitting outside sunning themselves and the caffe cum restaurant sells everything at all budgets from a grand meal at the back to an ice cream cone at the front.

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