Great Scott!

This weekend I was lucky enough to be invited by one of my friends to the newly opened Marcus Wareing Gilbert Scott restaurant housed in the recently restored St Pancras Renaissance hotel. A good excuse to have a snoop around the hotel also!


En route to the restaurant through the hotel, one very much gets the sense of being in a 'Gothic Revival' building with dark corridors on coloured tiled floors and wallpapered walls. It looks lavish but true to the style of that period. The restaurant was historically the coffee room in the old days of the Victorian hotel and thus named after the famed architect, Gibert Scott who won the competition set by Midland Railway for his design for an 150 room hotel to go alongside St Pancras station back in 1865.


Described on the website as having a "sense of grandeur in a relaxed and informal brasserie-like setting" is rather apt as the high ceilings and elaborate frieze are somewhat juxtaposed against the simpler furniture reminiscent of the old fashioned carriages. But this classicism together with the charm of the waiters & waitresses is endearing and their efficiency faultless - I loved that the waiter spotted the chorizo that had flown of my fork onto the floor and swifty swept it up in his hands.


The menu is pure heaven, a delight for culinary bold & daring (me) with a plethora of enticingly interesting options - razorclams, licolnshire haslet, different salad combinations yet mixed in with a few old favourites - brown & forrest salmon and london pride battered cod with chips. It details dishes as being inspired by old english cuisine and names renowned old cooks such as Isabelle Beeton and John Nott whose spatchcock inspired chicken was divine with an unctious lemon and herb gremolata. I couldn't really fault the food at all apart from personal preference (I like my chicken skin uber crispy!) Even the accompaniments were varied and inspired. Juicily griddles courgette chunks and pease puding for the nostalgic.


I would most defintely return in a flash at the merest suggestion of visiting the place - also to the pub on the other side with picnic benches outside. I have already sold the restaurant to my brother to take his wife or our parents maybe partly though as he knows that they serve Mrs Beeton's Snow Eggs!

http://www.thegilbertscott.co.uk/


www.trisori.com