Maze (W1K 6JP)
Ambience
Cuisine
Cuisine
Service
Value for Money
Value for Money
Maze Bar
Maze Dining Room
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- Taman Gang (W1K 7AA) (29/01/2008)
My husband and I tried booking Maze after it opened and couldn't get in, then promptly forgot about it - until a friend made a reservation for Saturday lunch. Ah! How nice these past two years would have been with Maze in our life.
We arrived at noon to an understandably empty restaurant (no brunch menu here), and were given an intimate table in the corner by one of the windows overlooking Grosvenor Square. We started with champagne and decided on the four-course tasting menu, which seemed like a bargain at £28.50.
By 12:30 the restaurant had filled up respectably, and our dishes started coming. The restaurant encourages tapas-style sharing, which lends itself naturally to the small (and unshared) selections we ordered.
Pumpkin soup with chunks of duck, pureed ceps and a brioche with cep butter kicked off our feast and was divine. Next up was a prawn "sandwich" with a filling of prawn salad next to whole prawns, also very good. One of our foursome had the foie gras instead, which she loved, and for the closest small plate to a main, we all had beef bourguignon. It fell of the bone and melted in your mouth - all the cliches you hope to find on your plate. Accompanied by roasted garlic and mushrooms, and a potato puree (which provided nice consistency but almost seemed unnecessary), it was the star of the show.
Until dessert. We were evenly split between the banana trifle and the rice pudding with maple walnut ice cream. The report was that the trifle was wonderful, but let me wax poetic about the rice pudding. A perfect blend of tastes and one of the best desserts I've had in awhile.
The service was friendly and efficient - although at a few points, almost too efficient (when a next course was clearly waiting). My only criticism is that at one stage, my artfully displayed (and unused) spoon was clearly not clean, but I didn't bother pointing it out, and it was replaced by a dessert spoon in good time.
Had we not stayed with champagne for all of lunch, we would have escaped still feeling lunch was a bargain. But Maze is the kind of restaurant where a meal without wine isn't complete, even if it does bring you to £150 per couple. And given how delicious everything was, even that seemed almost reasonable.
Perhaps it was the champagne...
By 12:30 the restaurant had filled up respectably, and our dishes started coming. The restaurant encourages tapas-style sharing, which lends itself naturally to the small (and unshared) selections we ordered.
Pumpkin soup with chunks of duck, pureed ceps and a brioche with cep butter kicked off our feast and was divine. Next up was a prawn "sandwich" with a filling of prawn salad next to whole prawns, also very good. One of our foursome had the foie gras instead, which she loved, and for the closest small plate to a main, we all had beef bourguignon. It fell of the bone and melted in your mouth - all the cliches you hope to find on your plate. Accompanied by roasted garlic and mushrooms, and a potato puree (which provided nice consistency but almost seemed unnecessary), it was the star of the show.
Until dessert. We were evenly split between the banana trifle and the rice pudding with maple walnut ice cream. The report was that the trifle was wonderful, but let me wax poetic about the rice pudding. A perfect blend of tastes and one of the best desserts I've had in awhile.
The service was friendly and efficient - although at a few points, almost too efficient (when a next course was clearly waiting). My only criticism is that at one stage, my artfully displayed (and unused) spoon was clearly not clean, but I didn't bother pointing it out, and it was replaced by a dessert spoon in good time.
Had we not stayed with champagne for all of lunch, we would have escaped still feeling lunch was a bargain. But Maze is the kind of restaurant where a meal without wine isn't complete, even if it does bring you to £150 per couple. And given how delicious everything was, even that seemed almost reasonable.
Perhaps it was the champagne...
Here Is The Writer : Sarah Western Balzer
Sarah Western Balzer is the managing director of HITC Life and is always on the hunt for reader-writers, so if you're one, make yourself known (sarah.western@hereisthecity.com). Sarah's other job is running a business that helps expats with lifestyle relocation, and is always on the hunt for clients, so - you guessed it: www.arrivalslimited.com. Sarah moved to London five years ago from New York but is originally from Florida, and still suntans like it's 1989. She is so grateful to the banker who introduced her to Here Is The City that she married him, and they live in Wapping with their son.
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