Frosty reception at the Oak
The menu at Upstairs at the Oak - recently reopened after a spell as a members' club - states: "We recommend three or four (savoury) dishes per person."
Leaving aside the side orders of vegetables, prices range from £4.25 for sobrasada (a Majorcan soft, spicy sausage usually spread on bread) to £16.75 for beef tagliata, with a hefty chunk of the items costing upwards of £10.50. Three or four of those each, plus maybe a salad and dessert, and your bill jumps up by leaps and bounds.
In a more or less empty room on a Tuesday evening, with a cold wind whistling through the windows and down our necks, we dutifully obeyed orders. I chose herb-seared tuna with wasabi vinaigrette, purple-sprouting broccoli with salted ricotta and truffle oil, and saltimbocca alla Romana with braised lentils and confit garlic - total £28.25.
Reg chose deep-fried squid with garlic mayonnaise, wild mushroom-and-thyme risotto and corn-fed chicken breast with gremolata (sic) and baby carrots - total £30. We also ordered a side dish of French beans and artichokes with marjoram at £4. "Are they globe artichokes or Jerusalem?" I asked the amiable waiter.
"I'll find out," he said, made a phone call and returned to say "global". There was not a trace of any artichokes, not even "global" ones, in the bean dish. Purple-sprouting broccoli turned out to be ordinary green broccoli served practically raw.
Dishes served on cold plates with no serving spoons - we'd had to ask for knives - grew as cold as we were.
It was a pity since some of the cooking - namely the tuna, the veal and the chicken breast - from head chef Patrick Lynch, formerly of The Hempel, says the press release, was decidedly accomplished.
What was once an alluring highceilinged, chandeliered space when Mark Broadbent cooked at The Oak has been transformed into a grey airport lounge look.
An enormous clock over the space where a fire would go, if there wasn't instead a cunning play of lights, allows you to count down the minutes until your flight. The downstairs restaurant with its wood-fired pizza oven continues to pack in happy punters.
