Le Cercle, sister restaurant of Club Gascon, serves exceptional French cuisine in modern, attractive decor. The prix-fixe lunchtime menu offers excellent value.
Got a date you want to impress? Round about that stage in the relationship when they might come back to yours after dinner? Take them to Le Cercle. It will tick most, if not all, of their 'is this guy/gal serious 'n sexy 'n cool' boxes, and if it doesn't, I suggest you don't bother with the next date.
It's hidden away down a side street behind Sloane Square (expensive location: tick) and looks extremely exclusive, with a minimalist name hidden behind a screen of bamboos (gotta be in the know - tick). Hand your coat over at the door and then descend past a lounge area (hip hotel look-alike: tick) to the dining room (cosy banquette nooks and flattering lighting: tick and tick).
Staff are young and good looking, and just a bit ditzy. There's a dimly-lit bar area where you can perch with champagne cocktails. Other diners are also young and hip (especially considering we're slap bang in the middle of Chelsea). The wine list is varied and reasonably good value, and the bill overall should be around £40 each, unless you've plied him/her with a couple of bottles.
Oh - the food? Marvellous. The idea is French tapas, but executed with great style and superb ingredients. (Means you can eat quite a bit without being too full ...) Choose 3 or 4 dishes each from a selection of 5 or 6 from the different menu sections - vegetable, fish, game, meat. This changes regularly, but our dishes included pumpkin veloute, teal, onglet, and rabbit. Yes the portions are small but so full of flavour and interest that we didn't need dessert, but we were heading home afterwards to drink pink champagne and eat macaroons ..
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