Lyle’s – 10 September 2014

A quick short, picture post about Lyle’s, a new restaurant in London at the time. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but I decided to visit – being new, it was a quiet lunchtime when I went. Dining alone, I had a simple, elegant three course lunch.

Chicken of the woods – a mushroom I hadn’t heard of until that day. Some of it had a bit of a tough texture, and was kind of sour. So-called because it absorbs the flavour around it while having the texture of chicken. I’ve managed to cook my own in a stint in Cape Town, and it’s quite a quirky mushroom.

Quail, chanterelles and crab apple jelly. It’s hard to get fresh chanterelles in Australia, and I had to remind myself they are far more accessible on this side of the world. This was an amazing dish and I loved the crab apple jelly.

Ice cream test! This was an apple sorbet with an elderflower vinegar meringue shard. That shard was absolutely delicious – I love the flavour of elderflower and it had a nice tang to it that complemented the sweetness of the apple sorbet.

I loved this place because of how simply the food was presented, yet had so much elegance to it. I would love to come back here and see how they’ve developed.