Bob Bob Ricard, London
BOB BOB RICARD: LONDON
09/03/12
By Beth
...WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT:
- You feel as if you're stepping into an episode of Mad Men
- Everything is fabulous - the food, cocktails, cutlery, crockery and glassware
- The service is attentive but not over the top
- To press the champagne bell, of course. What's not to love?!
Bob Bob ricard is a very special place to visit. From the moment you enter the doors, it is like stepping into another era. You have to pinch yourself that you’re not on the set of Mad Men.
Service here is wonderfully courteous and you really are treated a little bit like royalty. Staff, dressed in very elegant navy suits and yellow ties are there to greet you as soon as you walk through the door and coats and scarves are taken and hidden away in a lavish little closet before you are shown to your seat. Dress code is elegant although it states you don’t need to wear ties. Phew.
Inside the restaurant it is a striking mixture of blue and gold and the room is filled with little leather booths with gold art deco framing. There is a champagne bell at the end of each booth which never fails to amaze me every time I go. I once came here for a late dinner after a party and did actually press the bell which was every bit ‘kid in a sweet shop’ excitement as you can imagine. And swiftly enough afterwards, a very smart waiter came dashing over with a champagne menu. There is nothing I love more than a bit of kitsch novelty like this!
This time around, there was no champagne however but me and my two diners did have a lovely one course lunch. I have been to this restaurant many a time and I always seem to go back to one dish - their homemade Chicken Kiev (£13.75).
It is served on the bone (with a little chef hat on - some more novelty for me to enjoy!) oozing with a lovely garlic and herb butter and the chicken is always plentiful and succulent and the breadcrumbs not to thick or greasy. It normally comes with a very American sweetcorn mash and roasted slices of tomato but this time around it had changed to 'Sweetcorn Wheels’ - thinly sliced corn on the cob and the usual tomatoes. It was a tad disappointing as the corn was fiddly to actually get any corn off it and it lacked the lovely warming mash that goes so well with it. I ordered a side dish of Crushed Minted Peas (£3.75) that were just delicious and I could have actually eaten bowl after bowl of them they were that yummy.
One of my fellow diners decided to have exactly the same as me (no doubt after me raving about the chicken kiev!) and the other diner with us ordered the Chicken, Mushroom and Champagne Pie with Truffle Gravy (£12.75) and a side of creamed corn (£3.75). I didn’t actually try this dish but it looked great and the pastry had to be some of the best pastry I’d ever seen all golden and shiny and it even had the Bob Bob Ricard stamp printed in the top of it. It was also a really great sized pie so would have easily filled up even the hungriest diner.
Bob Bob Ricard is definitely somewhere to go for a treat when you want to feel posh, glamorous and spoilt rotten. It’s not the cheapest restaurant but it’s not in cheap surroundings so you kind of expect you’re not going to be getting a bargain when you go there. Nevertheless, I could go back again and again for their Chicken Kiev and the menu is pretty vast offering lots of choice for lunch, dinner and afternoon tea all at different levels of cost. I’ve not even mentioned Bobby’s Bar in the basement yet - now that, is something else. Perhaps I’ll leave that to another time to add another touch of glamour to my blog!
Bob Bob Ricard, 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DF.
